Maskelyne (PL7 Hero)

[Shofet]

Player Name: Shofet

Character Name: Maskelyne

Power Level: 7 (0/105PP)

Trade-Offs: +2 Attack, -2 Damage

Unspent Power Points: 0

Progress To Bronze Status: 0/30

In Brief: An amateur escape-artist and magician with the slightest tinge of the mystic

Alternate Identity: Mabel Terrick (Birth name: Maruska Tesarik, Jr.)

Identity: Secret

Birthplace: Praha, Czech Republic

Occupation: Amateur magician

Affiliations: Gymnastics studio, the Circus

Family: Father: Damien Terrick (Damek Tesarik), Mother: Mary Terrick (Maruska Tesarik, Sr.)

Description:

Age: 17 (DoB: March 24, 1994)

Apparent Age: 17

Gender: Female

Ethnicity: Czech

Height: 5'04"

Weight: 122lb

Eyes: Chocolate brown

Hair: Russet

Mabel (or Maruska if you know her well enough) has a lithe, athletic form that is well-toned, with a very linear body that does not curve all too much. Her face is narrow and hawkish, yet pretty in a girlish sort of way, her youth still quite apparent. Her eyes often maintain an almost predatory look about them, except in close company, where they switch rapidly to a doey, wide-eyed look. Her eyebrows are very thin, but highly expressive. Her skin is lightly browned from frequent excercise in the sun, and some freckles scatter across the bridge of her nose. The canine tooth on the upper right side is chipped in half.

Everything about her appearance is neatly kept. Her hair is kept it in a bob cut that is impeccably well-kept, her teeth perfectly white and her skin taken almost obessively care of. When dressing in her civilian identity, she prefers to wear blouses with knee-length skirts, or a pair of drab trousers with suspenders, save for when she works out, where she exchanges her normally stuffy attire for bike shorts and a sports bra with some sneakers. She usually wears a pair of horn-rimmed glasses, save for when she works out, when she switches for contacts

Dressed as Maskelyne, she wears 1920s inspired "circus performer" style tights, with lacing up at the neckline, and sleeves cutting off just below the elbows, coloured in swatches of black, dull red, and brown. On her hands, she wears a pair of black gloves that start at the base of her palm, leaving her wrists exposed. Like many unpowered heroes, she wears a utility belt filled with the goodies she needs to help fight the bad guys.

Power Descriptions:

Her magical capabilities, though few in number, tend to create a small, but controlled flash.

History:

Maruska Tesarik was born in Praha, or Prague, in the Czech Republic, to a circus performer named Damek Tesarik, and an art critic named Maruska Tesarik, neé Prazsky. Her father was a well-known contortionist and acrobat amongst the circuses of Europe, and happily dragged his family along with him all across Europe while he performed, and even got the occasional movie deal in the European film community. This meant that young Maruska never made friends for very long outside the circus, so she often had to entertain herself by reading up on magician's history or more "legitimate" magic whe she wasn't being schooled by her various tutors, an interest sparked by her time around the circus.

During her reading, she found out about Harry Houdini, whom she grew deeply interested in, after she found out she had the same birthday as him. She loved his escape tricks, as well as his magician skills. But she also deeply appreciated his skeptic mind, and his unwillingness to let superstition be used as a tool to manipulate the gullible and desperate. This led her to begin to mimic Houdini's tricks and look upon her old readings on the occult with disdain, much to the delight of her father at the time, who wanted her to go into the "family business". Through Houdini she found out about other magicians of a similar nature, like John Nevil Maskelyne, who was an equally well-known escapologist of the time, somewhat infamous amongst cardsharps for revealing all their secrets in one of his books. Sadly, her mother suffered cardiac arrest when Maruska was eight, and though her mother survived, it permanently affected Maruska, who become obsessed with keeping good health and doggedly doing all she could to avoid going through something similar. She also began to practice magician's tricks aside from Houdini's, and continued practicing both to perform feats of increasing difficulty as she grew up, mostly to keep her mind off what had happened. By the time she was fourteen, she was an accomplished magician and escape artist for her age, exceeding the skill of many adults who made a living off doing such things.

Unfortunately, her life changed rather dramatically in November of 2011. Her father had accidentally drawn the attention of mafiosos while in Sicily, who tried to scratch off some of her father's earnings with threats of violence, which her father balked at. The result was a rather brutal fight, which although her father technically one, knocking two of his opponents unconscious and one permanently paralysed in the right hand, he received permanent damage in several locations that more or less made performing any more in the future near-impossible. The event inspired her father to pack up the family and finally leave Europe without so much as a notice to his fellow workers, and heading to Freedom City, where he felt the family would be safe due to the presence of so many heroes. He encouraged the family to adopt new names, taking on the more generic "Terrick" as a last name and picking more English sounding names to fit in.

Maruska, now calling herself Mabel, was sullen about moving to America, which she had always considered somewhat "backwards", though not out of any genuine knowledge of the place, but more stereotypes. However, she figured that if her idol, Harry Houdini could survive in the United States, then so could she. Since her father discouraged practicing her escape artistry and magic tricks, as they would "draw unwanted attention", she picked up reading on the occult as she had done when she was young. This time, she actually managed to find some legitimate spells, much to her initial disbelief. However, attempting them proved to her that they were in fact the genuine article. This event, combined with increasing restlessness at being unable to pursue her hobby, led her to go out into the night quite recently, and attempt to fight the sort of crime that had forced her to abandon her own life, figuring that the "larger scale" heroes would be too busy fighting the cosmic level threats. Within Freedom City, the family had lost a lot of their money through the escape and the creation of new identities, so Damek took up a job as a gymnastics instructor at a local studio, and Mabel took a part-time job as a ballet instructor, a talent she picked up while her father was touring in Russia and France. However, during her night-time escapades, she has found that perhaps her family didn't flee secretly enough, as they might just have been followed...

Personality & Motivation:

Mabel is an intelligent, strong-willed, and determined young woman. However, she is also arrogant and conceited to a lot of people, mostly as a defense mechanism. This does not make it any less grating for those who know her. She has the problem of assuming people don't know what she is talking about, which is not necessarily true, and thus coming off as talking down to other people. She's also very much a health-nut, refusing to put anything she feels is "damaging" into her body like alcohol (which was often legal for her to drink while in Europe, though she never drank it) or fatty foods, and criticising choices by others to do so. Her temper rarely ever flares, instead becoming icy and venomous when she is upset with someone, and she is never shy, often to her detriment. However, she does have a softer side, however hard it is to get to. She's remarkably patient with her ballet students, and is actually engaging when someone is trying to learn something from her, where she loses the edge she normally carries in her personality and instead becomes friendly, cooperative and informative. She also has a weakness for seeing people cry that tends to knock her defenses down.

In terms of motivations, a lot of it is restlessness and anger at having her life snatched from her like it was, but there is another component to her that is a lot less self-serving and genuinely noble. She has a very real sense of self-sacrifice when someone is in danger, and that wrongs need to be righted. She's also very much against pointless cruelty for the sake of revenge, believing that it only leads to escalation that often ends up fatal, something she is very keen to avoid. Her priorities when opposing criminals are more to prevent them from hurting any more people rather than to just hurt them, though she remains a moral absolutist: if you do bad, you are bad (though that doesn't mean you deserve anything especially terrible).

Powers & Tactics:

Maskelyne does what she can to avoid up-front confrontations, preferring to use the shadows and acrobatics to her advantage. Having no illusion of immortality, Maskelyne will not take unnecessary risks, and tries to deal with opponents based on their perceived threat level: with large bruisers, she will try and use ranged weapons, though if forced will try and sneak up on them to knock them out quickly and efficiently; with leaner, less capable opponents, she will occasionally risk hand to hand, as she is a capable fighter, but still prefers to attack at a range. If in a bind, she will use the few spells she knows to help herself out of it -- only one of these spells is offensive, the rest being more about moving quickly and unseen.

---

Complications:

Hunted: The Casa Nostra is very much after Maskelyne and her family, especially her father, and isn't afraid to use her to hurt him in any way they can.

Secret: Identity: Because of the above, Maskelyne's father is desperate to ensure his family draws as little attention to itself as possible, so if he were to find out what his daughter was doing, he'd be absolutely livid, and as he likes to threaten when mad, "send her off to a convent in Bavaria."

Famous family: Try as they might, the Tesariks, or now, the "Terricks" can not escape the fact that their family was actually rather famous in Europe. While Maskelyne and her mother have more of a chance to escape notice, her father has acted in movies and was huge in the circuses of Europe, so those familiar with him will probably figure out who he is if they talk with him long enough, and by proxy, figure out who she is.

Abilities: 2 + 10 + 4 + 8 + 4 + 0 = 28PP

Strength: 12 (+1)

Dexterity: 20 (+5)

Constitution: 14 (+2)

Intelligence: 18 (+4)

Wisdom: 14 (+2)

Charisma: 10 (+0)

Combat: 12 + 7 = 19PP

Initiative: +5

Attack: +7 Melee/ +5 Ranged

Grapple: +8

Defense: +7 (+7 Base, +0 Dodge Focus), +0 Flat-Footed

Knockback: -1

Saving Throws: 3 + 3 + 3 = 9PP

Toughness: +7 (+2 Con, +5 Protection)

Fortitude: +5 (+2 Con, +3)

Reflex: +8 (+5 Dex, +3)

Will: +7 (+4 Wis, +3)

Skills: 72R = 18PP

Acrobatics 8 (+13)^{Skill Mastery}

Climb 8 (+9)

Escape Artist 8 (+13)^{Skill Mastery}

Investigate 4 (+8)

Knowledge: Arcane Lore 4 (+8)

Knowledge: History 4 (+8)

Language 5 (Czech [Native], English, Italian, German, Spanish, Russian)

Perform: Dance 7 (+7)^{Skill Mastery}

Search 4 (+8)

Sleight of Hand 8 (+13)^{Skill Mastery}

Stealth 8 (+13)

Feats: 6PP

Benefit 1: Wealthy

Improved Trip

Instant-Up

Luck

Move-By-Action

Skill Mastery

Powers: 12 + 4 + 9 = 25PP

Device 4 (Multi-purpose Club, Technology; 20PP Container; Flaws: Easy-to-Lose) [12PP]

Strike 7 (Studded club, Technology) [7PP)

Blast 6 (Sling, Technology; Power Feats: Mighty) [13PP]

Device 1(Hypermesh Suit, Technology; 5PP Container; Flaws: Hard-To-Lose) [4PP]

Protection 5 (Hypermesh Suit, Technology) [5PP]

Magical Array 3 (6 point array, Magic; Power Feats: Alternate Power 3) (9PP)

BP: Concealment 3 (Normal Sight, Hearing) {6PP}

AP: Teleport 3 ([Range]) {6PP}

AP: Darkness Control 3 ([Range]) {6PP}

AP: Super-Movement 3 (Wall-Crawling 2, Slow-Fall) {6PP}

DC Block

    ATTACK      RANGE     SAVE                        EFFECT

    Unarmed     Touch     DC16 Toughness (Staged)     Damage (Physical)

    Club        Touch     DC22 Toughness (Staged)     Damage (Physical)

    Sling       Ranged    DC22 Toughness (Staged)     Damage (Physical)

    

Totals: Abilities (28) + Combat (19) + Saving Throws (9) + Skills (18) + Feats (6) + Powers (25) - Drawbacks (0) = 105/105 Power Points

[Avenger Assembled]

Short Range is not a suitable flaw for Teleport 3, since it doesn't have a long-range distance.

[Shofet]

Alright, amended that by removing the power feat Turnabout and the flaw to make it even.

[Avenger Assembled]

Where are you getting the +9 ranged attack?

(More generally, I would not buy Favored Opponent if I were you, especially not at your PL; it means Maskelyne is at a _terrible_ disadvantage vs. anyone else)

[Shofet]

The +9 was actually a holdover from something else that I forgot to remove.

Additionally, I removed the favoured opponent and replaced it with 4 ranks in Search and Investigate to fill the void.

[Shofet]

And finally, that should do it.

Changes made:

• 
  [*:10epbift]Removed Concentration
  [*:10epbift]Changed the "Combat Array" to a Device instead of power.

Hopefully I got it rather right this time.

[Avenger Assembled]

APPROVED

[trollthumper]

I'm not seeing any ranks in Attack Focus or Attack Specialization. I can see the 12 PP Breakdown (+5 Base Attack, 2 ranks of Attack Focus [Melee]), but it might be better to stick the Attack Focus Feats under the Feats list. Also, Defense, like Attack, is 2 PP per rank, so a +7 Base Defense would be 14 PP.

You had 68 ranks of Skills instead of 72, as listed.

On the Club - might it be better to include the Strike as an Alternate Power of the Blast? That way, you could fit 6 PP worth of Power Feats in, as well as another 12 PP worth of Extras/Power Feats for the Strike function so it matches the value of the Blast Base.

Everything else looks good, though, and the origin's creative.