The Twins

[Avenger Assembled]

Summer Salem is cheery, upbeat, and optimistic - with an edge that turns hard if her brother or anything she cares about is threatened. Her powers are tied to her name and tend to center around thunderstorms, bright sunlight, and other 'summery' weather events. Deep down in her heart she wasn't so sure about leaving but she would never let Winter go anywhere alone. She wears her dark hair shoulder length, a slightly masculine cut by the standards of the society that produced her. 

 

Abilities: 0 + 0 + 4 + 2 + 4 + 2 = 12 PP 

STR 10 (+0) 

DEX 10 (+0) 

CON 14 (+2) 

INT 12 (+1) 

WIS 14 (+2) 

CHA 12 (+1) 

 

Combat: 8 + 8 = 16 PP  

ATK: +4 (+6 Weather) 

DEF: +7 (+3 Dodge, +4 Base, +2 flat-footed) 

Init: +0 

Grapple: +4, +2+16

Knockback: -3/-1

 

Saves: 3 + 5 + 4 = 12 PP 

TOU +7/+2 (+2 Con, +5 Force Field) 

FORT +5 (+2 Con, +3)  

REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5)  

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)  

 

Skills: 40 r = 10 PP 

Bluff 8 (+9) 

Concentration 8 (+10)

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 4 (+5) 

Knowledge (Theology) 4 (+5) 

Handle Animal 4 (+5) 

Notice 4 (+6)

Sense Motive 4 (+6) 

Survival 4 (+6)

 

Feats: 7 PP  

Attack Specialization (Weather) 

Dodge Focus 3 

Environmental Adaptation (Stormy Weather) 

Power Attack 

Second Chance (Checks vs. Fear) 

 

Powers: 1 + 6 + 5 + 2 + 34 = 48 PP

 

Feature 1 (Weather Sense) [1PP] 

Flight 3 (50 MPH/500 fpm) [6PP] 

Force Field 5 [5PP] 

Immunity 2 (environmental cold, heat) [2PP] 

Weather Control 12 (24 PP, PFs: Dynamic, Dynamic Alternate Powers 4, Variable Descriptor 1 [any weather]) [34PP]

DBE: Environmental Control 1-6 (4 points worth of effects [Cold, Hamper Movement (icy/wet surfaces), Heat, Light [ball lightning], Reduced Visibility (rain/sleet/snow), Wind] in a 5 to 250 ft. radius) {4-24, 0-20 left}

DAP: Blast 1-8 (lightning or other weather; PFs: Indirect 2) {4-18, 6-20 left}

DAP: Blast 1-7 (mini-blizzard or other weather; Extra: Area [5-35-ft. Burst, General]) {3-21, 3-21 left}

DAP: Dazzle 1-7 (thunder-stroke or other weather, auditory & visual; Extras: Area [5-35-ft. Burst, General]) {3-21, 3-21 left}

DAP: Move Object 1-8 ('Air Control,' Str 5-40, Hvy Load 50 lbs. - 3 tons; Extra: Range [Perception]) {3-24, 0-21 left}

[Avenger Assembled]

Winter Salem is cold, secretive, and sensitive. He was always much more of a true believer than his sister (even within the confines of the People of the Faith) so it took a terrible betrayal to send him fleeing here. His powers tend to revolve around winter - cold, ice, freezing, and other things. He wears his dark hair shoulder-length, a slightly feminine cut by the standards of the society that produced him. 

 

Abilities: 0 + 0 + 4 + 2 + 4 + 2 = 12 PP 

STR 10 (+0) 

DEX 10 (+0) 

CON 14 (+2) 

INT 12 (+1) 

WIS 14 (+2) 

CHA 12 (+1) 

 

Combat: 8 + 8 = 16 PP  

ATK: +4 (+6 Weather) 

DEF: +7 (+3 Dodge, +4 Base, +2 flat-footed) 

Init: +0 

Grapple: +4, +2+16

Knockback: -3/-1

 

Saves: 3 + 5 + 4 = 12 PP 

TOU +7/+2 (+2 Con, +5 Force Field) 

FORT +5 (+2 Con, +3)  

REF +5 (+0 Dex, +5)  

WILL +6 (+2 Wis, +4)  

 

Skills: 40 r = 10 PP 

Concentration 4 (+6)

Intimidate 12 (+13) 

Knowledge (Arcane Lore) 4 (+5) 

Knowledge (Theology) 4 (+5) 

Handle Animal 4 (+5) 

Notice 4 (+6)

Sense Motive 4 (+6) 

Survival 4 (+6)

 

Feats: 7 PP  

Attack Specialization (Weather) 

Dodge Focus 3 

Environmental Adaptation (Stormy Weather) 

Power Attack 

Startle 

 

Powers: 1 + 6 + 5 + 2 + 34 = 48 PP

 

Feature 1 (Weather Sense) [1PP] 

Flight 3 (50 MPH/500 fpm) [6PP] 

Force Field 5 [5PP] 

Immunity 2 (environmental cold, heat) [2PP] 

Weather Control 12 (24 PP, PFs: Dynamic, Dynamic Alternate Powers 4, Variable Descriptor 1 [any weather]) [34PP]

DBE: Environmental Control 1-6 (4 points worth of effects [Cold, Hamper Movement (icy/wet surfaces), Heat, Light [ball lightning], Reduced Visibility (rain/sleet/snow), Wind] in a 5 to 250 ft. radius) {4-24, 0-20 left}

DAP: Blast 1-8 (lightning or other weather; PFs: Indirect 2) {4-18, 6-20 left}

DAP: Blast 1-7 (mini-blizzard or other weather; Extra: Area [5-35-ft. Burst, General]) {3-21, 3-21 left}

DAP: Dazzle 1-7 (thunder-stroke or other weather, auditory & visual; Extras: Area [5-35-ft. Burst, General]) {3-21, 3-21 left}

DAP: Move Object 1-8 ('Air Control,' Str 5-40, Hvy Load 50 lbs. - 3 tons; Extra: Range [Perception]) {3-24, 0-21 left}

[Avenger Assembled]

The twins are outsiders here, from another place, time, or dimension. They don't dress quite right and they don't fit in with other people their age, which is one reason they play up their resemblance and their ability to finish each other's sentences. They've always been good company for each other. 

 

They both like to read classic literature and drop quotes from it into their casual conversation. 

 

They really are genetically identical twins except one has two X chromosones and the other a Y. 

 

They have tan skin and dark hair. You might guess they're Italian - or maybe Arab? 

[Avenger Assembled]

The Villages are in the Woods just south of the Valley of the Shadow of Death. 

 

The People of the Faith came to the Villages years ago to escape the City of Destruction that was once their home. 

 

The Woods south of the Valley are full of creatures that don't like the People of the Faith much. Demons, dragons, fiends, satyrs, goblins, hobgoblins, monsters, creatures from the bottomless pit, beasts from the mouth of Hell, darkness, terror, and horror - it's not great. 

 

The People of the Faith aren't so different than we are. They "respect the dignity of the individual, regardless of social status, are egalitarian, stress the importance of education,,  base government on the principle of contract or covenant, are committed to principles rather than to individuals or institutions, and reject tyranny." By modern standards they are rather dour, though. Many things are sins in the Book of the Lord of the Hill that are not sins by the standards of a modern person.  

 

The Villages are defended by the Blessed - those endowed by The Lord Of The Hill with certain powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal men and women. The Blessed typically wear what would be formal garb for people in the Villages - dark clothing for men and women, hats for the men and bonnets for the women, buckles on their shoes, etc. 

The Villages support themselves by farming, timber, and furs, and in many ways are self-sufficient. Parties of armed men and the Blessed will occasionally go monster-hunting in the Valley, bringing back valuable bones, organs, and other artifacts. Really exciting times are if they can catch a Giant. People die when they fight Giants but Giant bone, blood, and trinkets have great power. 

[Avenger Assembled]

Lifespans are long in the Villages - at least for an early modern society where gunpowder and the printing press are the height of technology. The People of the Faith attribute this to the clean living and good food they enjoy here (unlike those left behind in the City of Destruction) and they are right. They have had only a few generations to get used to the idea that there is such a thing as grandparents. Literacy rates are high too. The law of the Villages requires taxes that (among other things) support schools. The People of the Faith want their children to be able to read the Book of the Lord of the Hill, and certain other approved texts. 

 

The Lord of the Hill is no distant Watchmaker - the Lord controls all, personified. A builder who shapes the world to Their world, The Lord of the Hill rewards and punishes. The Lord of the Hill  is kind, but vengeful to those who ignore the plan. The fate of Their people is always in Their hands. The People of the Faith are the Lord of the Hill's great tools - and responsible for it. If a community violates the Lord of the Hill's plans, there will be plagues and those within the village will be damned. But they live in less fear than you might think - their work is proof that the Lord of the Hill is real and you are Their testament. Events in the world are sacred - even those that might not seem so. 

 

For all of their belief in egalitarianism, The Villages are a male-dominated society. Women do not participate in town meetings and are excluded from decision making in the church. The ministers of the Faith preach that the soul has two parts, the immortal masculine half, and the mortal feminine half. A major exception to this rhetoric is women among the Blessed - as they have been "unsexed" by their Blessing they can speak in town meetings and even in the church, within certain strict limits. Female names include Patience, Silent, Fear, Prudence, Comfort, Hopestill, and Be Fruitful. 

 

They govern themselves by town meetings, on the common green when the weather is good and in the church when the weather is bad. The village green is also where they come to buy or barter from their neighbors. Occasionally merchants will come from other lands and the People will trade with them as long as they are respectful; trade is important. 

 

The people of the Villages live in family groups - single men and women do not dwell alone barring special circumstances. (A widow or widower, and then where are your family to take care of you?) New single arrivals or converts are assigned families to live with. The average Villager lives in a farming family tending a small plot of land. They grow grains - mostly corn, though there is some beans, pumpkins, wheat, barley, oats and peas depending on where you are. Most have at least some animals. They cut wood, build with wood, buy metals, books, cloth, spices, the latter often from other places like the distant city of Vanity Fair. 

(The People of the Faith only go there in numbers - the road there passes through the Valley of the Shadow of Death.) 

Men will typically have some trade beyond their fields - cooper, furrier, hunter, minister, surveyor, tanner. Women work in the fields and with animals - most have a garden. They may have a trade too; especially with textiles or childbirth. 

An average family will have a husband, a wife, and perhaps five children, with perhaps eight to ten children having been born in total. The People of the Faith are taught to think of the family unit above the individual. They rise at dawn and bed at dusk. They typically live in a Village (hence the name!) and living out of sight of one's neighbor is a dangerous thing, both physically and spiritually.

 

 

[Avenger Assembled]

About seven thousand people live in the Villages, scattered in communities that stretch across about a forest about seventy miles long and thirty miles deep. The trees are tall and thick, with brush only occasionally broken by animal or hunter's tracks. The forests are more fertile to the north, with bigger fruit, animals, and beasts. but that's where the demonic concentration is the strongest. Funny how that works! 

 

 Sugar maple, yellow birch, beech, and white ash are the most common trees - along with eastern hemlock and white pine. Wintergreen, wild sarsaparilla, and wood sorrel grow wild, along with other herbs and plants, some of a more exotic nature. Birds and animals (beyond the monsters mentioned above) include the chickadee, sparrow, porcupine, snowshoe hare, white-tailed deer, squirrel, moose, bear, and wolf. 

 

The summers are warm and pleasant; the winters killing cold - at least for the People of the Faith. (The creatures of the forest usually do just fine.) The fall leaves are gorgeous; lending a special vigor to the various harvest festivals. 

 

The largest town in the Villages is Lords-Will, with a population of about three thousand. It's about fifty years old and was the first town the People of the Faith built when they arrived. Older homes in Lords-Will are the sort of thatched-roof cottages that they lived in back in the City of Destruction but newer homes are typically well-organized clapboard cottages with gardens in the rear. Lords-Will is also where their most skilled artisans live; it's where the powder works and the printing press are too. There aren't any colleges; the local population just isn't enough to support one. 

[Avenger Assembled]

The twins are literate (something that was a matter of pride in their community) and have between them committed substantial passages of the Book of the Lord of the Hill to memory, as well as various pieces of commentary on it. The language they speak is enough like Early Modern English that they can understand most of what they hear and see, though other people may occasionally have trouble with their meaning. It doesn't help that, like many twins, they are very good at communicating with each other without saying anything at all. 

 

[Avenger Assembled]

Container 3 (Older Twin Power, Extra: Sustained) [15PP] 

Communication Link 1 [Winter] (mental) [1PP] 

Enhanced Con 4 (to Con 18/+4) [4PP] 

Enhanced Feats 2 (Luck 2) [2PP] 

Enhanced Weather Control 4 [8PP] 

1 + 4 + 2 + 8

 

Container 3 (Younger Twin Power, Extra: Sustained) [15PP] 

Communication Link 1 [Summer] (mental) [1PP] 

Enhanced Con 4 (to Con 18/+4) [4PP] 

Enhanced Skill 8 (Concentration 4, Diplomacy 4) [2PP] 

Enhanced Weather Control 4 [8PP] 

1 + 4 + 2 + 8

 

The twins have what appears to be a mystic bond that enhances both their Blessings and their other abilities. They grow uneasy when separated from each other for too long - and their abilities weaken. This is a Complication.