Levander's General Gallery of Goons (Chainmail, Captain Nemo, One-Punch Man)

Where in all of your character write ups will go.
Jabroniville
Posts: 24689
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 8:05 pm

Re: Levander's General Gallery of Goons (Levi Ackermann, Hecaton)

Post by Jabroniville »

Cool adult Incredibles characters! Some great art you used, as well! Seeing them upgraded is rather interesting.
Levander
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:49 am
Location: Finland

Re: Levander's General Gallery of Goons (Levi Ackermann, Hecaton)

Post by Levander »

Jabroniville wrote: Mon Sep 24, 2018 9:01 am Cool adult Incredibles characters! Some great art you used, as well! Seeing them upgraded is rather interesting.
Thanks! I find that I quite enjoy building liberal interpretations of existing characters, since it gives me a good framework without having to worry too much about the exact details (plus, generally better art than I can whip up on HeroMachine).
Levander
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:49 am
Location: Finland

Hecatian

Post by Levander »

Image

HECATIAN
PL 10 (155)


OPL: 10; DPL: 10
Identity: Andrea Triscari (secret)
Status: Active at age 26
Nationality: Italy/Greece
Languages: Italian, Greek, Ancient Greek, English
Affiliation: Hecate
Special Traits: Sorcery and the might of Hecate

ABILITIES:
STRENGTH 1, AGILITY 2, FIGHTING 5, AWARENESS 6
STAMINA 3, DEXTERITY 0, INTELLECT 3, PRESENCE 3

SKILLS:
Athletics 2 (+3), Expertise (Magic) 8 (+11), Expertise (History) 10 (+13), Ranged Combat (Magic) 6 (+10)

ADVANTAGES:
Artificer, Luck 3, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 4, Ritualist, Trance

POWERS:
“Levitation”
Flight 5: 120 mph [10]

“Arcane Barrier”
Protection 10 (Impervious 10; Limited -1 [Treated as an active defense], Sustained +0) [10]

"Magical Girl Transformation"
Feature 1: Quick Change [1]

“Goddess of Protection”
Create 12 (Impervious +1, Movable +1; Limited to simple barriers -1, Inaccurate; Dynamic) [36]
  • DAE: “Keeper of the Hounds”
    Ranged Damage 10 (Multiattack +1, Precise Attack 2 [Cover & Concealment]) (32) [2]
  • DAE: “Far Reacher”
    Move Object 10: 25 tons (Precise) (21) [2]
  • DAE: “Matron of Many Forms”
    Morph 3: Any humanoid (15) [2]
  • DAE: “Light of Byzantion”
    Environment 6: 900 ft., Light 2 (12) [2]
  • DAE: “Watcher of the Roads”
    Teleport 8: 1 mile/250 miles (Change Direction, Extended +1) (25) [2]
  • DAE: “Guardian of the Beyond”
    Senses 4: Mental (Detect Magic; Acute, Ranged, Tracking) (4)
    Comprehend 2: Spirits (4) [2]

OFFENSE:
Unarmed +5 (Tough DC 16)
Keeper of Hounds +10 (Tough DC 25), Far Reacher +10 (Strength DC 20)
Goddess of Protection +8 (Dodge DC 22)

DEFENSES:
Dodge 7 (DC 17), Parry 7 (DC 17)
Toughness +13 (Imp. 10), Fortitude +6, Will +11

Abilities 46 + Skills 13 + Advantages 11 + Powers 71 + Defenses 15 = 155

COMPLICATIONS:
Identity: Andrea has to balance her hero work with her civilian job at the National Archaeological Museum.
Misunderstood: Andrea has a bad tendency to look, speak, and kind of even act like a villain, all while fighting for good and protecting innocents without hurting anyone. This has caused many a misunderstanding and frustrated her to no end.
Power Loss: Andrea must be able to gesture with her hands in order to cast her spells. She must also consult the Laginan Codex about once a week to maintain her powers and allow them to grow.
Rivalry: With fellow Greek hero Hecaton, for mostly rather petty reasons, and to an extent the Olympians in general.


Andrea Triscari was born in Syracuse, Italy, in 1992, to ethnic Greek parents. In her early teens, she found herself fascinated with history, and Greco-Roman mythology in particular. In a bit of a rebellious phase, much to the shock of her parents, she even started calling herself a member of the neo-pagan Hellenic faith, though it was mostly a matter of interest in the subject. Nonetheless, she started idolizing her Greek identity over her Italian one, and eventually moved to study archaeology in the Academy of Athens.

On one field trip to the National Archaeological Museum in 2013, Andrea first encountered the Laginan Codex, a badly damaged parchment scroll from the ancient city-state of Lagina, devoted to the worship of the goddess Hecate. Something possessed her – perhaps literally – to hatch a complicated plan to steal the parchment and take it to her apartment. As she carefully held the scroll, it miraculously started to reconstruct itself, the faded text coming back to view, perfectly legible to her despite still not having finished Introduction to Ancient Greek.

Convinced that the scroll was in fact trying to communicate with her, Andrea found that the increasingly long document contained the instructions to a variety of powerful spells. Pumped full of arcane power, Andrea didn’t really question the whole thing and found herself turning back to her pagan faith, now more seriously than ever. Hecate was the goddess of many things, including crossroads, doorways, light, magic, witchcraft and ghosts, and worshipped as one of the most important protective deities in Athens. Inspired by this, Andrea started using her magic to try and become a heroic defender of Athens as well, titling herself a priestess of Hecate and naming herself after her.

She remained fairly obscure, having to focus on her studies as well. Some time later, however, she was struck with the insult-upon-injury of the old hero team of the Olympians making a comeback, and even led by someone with almost her exact name! Furious, she confronted this “Hecaton” and challenged her to a duel, winning handily by exploiting her opponent’s weakness to magic, yet the woman still refused to change her name. Since then, Andrea's relationship with Hecaton and the Olympians has been vitriolic at best, refusing to work with them but also to fight against them, since they are still “on the same side”. She also treats Hecaton's claims that she's spoken directly to Zeus with a mix of envy and skepticism, because obviously she's a priestess of Hecate yet has never experienced the same.

Today, Andrea has already graduated and managed to get her dream job working at the museum she originally stole the Codex from, all the while trying to brand herself as a real hero instead of a villain-looking weirdo who shows up to yell at the Olympians. Her primary offensive spells include spiritual bolts in the shape of running hounds (Hecate’s favored animal) and massive clawed hands of arcane energy. It's worth noting that her actual hair color is a lot more blondish than the one in her hero guise, helping maintain her cover.

---

I came up with Hecatian just for the joke of Hecaton stealing her name - I'll admit, probably inspired by a similar gag in Spinnerette, which I once read a bit of - but quite liked the concept - she ended up a bit of a dork. I mean, as we all know, magic characters are a dime a dozen and can be very annoying, but giving them a more specific theme helps… even if part of Hecate’s theme is that she’s the goddess of a little bit of everything, I guess. If stuff like magic users pulling new powers of out of their ass is frustrating, just don’t let ‘em.

I was never a big fan of Dynamic Arrays, but I’m starting to see the upsides of them. Having two powers active at partial efficiency always seemed unoptimal to me, but with the right set-up, I guess you can have a strong expensive power and a cheaper utility one at the same time while still getting a discount, which is pretty nice, especially for powers like Environment and Teleport where you actually only need a couple ranks most of the time.

As a side note, since my Touhou builds may or may not be partially canon in this setting - Touhou taking place in a very isolated area with no relevance to the world at large - I have the amusing mental image of her unknowingly worshipping that series' version of Hecate.
Last edited by Levander on Fri Sep 28, 2018 11:24 am, edited 1 time in total.
Levander
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:49 am
Location: Finland

Titans

Post by Levander »

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PROJECT TARTAROS

Origin: Attack on Titan

Project Tartaros was an advanced super-soldier project undertaken by Nazi Germany at a facility in Silesia, top-secret even compared to other similar research. Sources suggest that the Titan Serum is in fact magical in origin, but scientists succeeded in refining it into a chemical, reproducible form. Like many other Nazi inventions, it was tested largely on Soviet prisoners of war or people picked out from concentration camps in order to refine it to a form worthy of being used on proper Aryans. The project made great progress, but as is so typical, it came too late to be of any use. In fact, the only time that Tartaros' creations were used during the war was when they were released in a last-ditch effort right before the researchers themselves fled from the advancing Soviet army.

All who have ever witnessed a Titan, even experienced superheroes, rightfully consider them one of if not the most grotesque and terrifying things they've ever seen. Beyond just their warped, not-quite-human proportions, there's the fact that their sole purpose in life is to eat humans alive, a goal which they pursue with great enthusiasm. Not to mention that they can recover from seemingly all damage: their movements tend to be sluggish, but the only way to kill a Titan is to destroy a specific node of nerves in the spine at the base of its neck, which tends to require either specialized deep-cutting weapons (plus the equipment to reach up there) or sheer explosive firepower. The Soviets resorted to razing the whole area with heavy artillery.

Titans have very high body heat and bodies strangely light for their size. A defeated Titan's corpse and its bodily fluids soon vaporize, leaving nothing behind. They lack genitalia and the ability to reproduce, and even a digestive system, eventually vomiting up whatever humans they eat. It's unclear if all these monstrous, nigh-uncontrollable Titans were Tartaros' intended result or just intermediary steps on the way to an ultimate goal. One possible end goal exists in the form of the so-called Advanced Titans, the most intelligent and dangerous of all.

After the main facility in Silesia was destroyed, Tartaros was effectively shut down, but some of the researchers survived and went into hiding, though the project's extreme secrecy ensured that all of them only possessed partial knowledge of its workings. Isolated Titan sightings in the U.S. suggest that some researchers were taken in by its own super-soldier projects. Ezekiel Jäger, one of Tartaros' top scientists, remains active to this day and has reportedly joined forces with Imperium to resume his work for the Nazi cause. Some hidden caches of Titans may even be left over from the war, simply hibernating in a bunker somewhere until awakened once more.

Perhaps the greatest tragedy of Titans, of course, is that the vast majority of them are simply innocent prisoners warped by the Nazis' horrid experiments. Some heroes tend to take this realization quite badly, but there's little they can do to help.

COMPLICATIONS:
Disability: Titans cannot speak or understand speech (except some Abnormals).
Simple-Minded: Titans only focus on chasing after their immediate prey in a straight line. They’re even dumber than most predatory animals in the pursuit of their goal, and may become dazed or even stunned for a round when tripped, otherwise disoriented, or faced with unexpected resistance. It’s also trivial to sneak up on them when they’re eating something or otherwise distracted.
Solar-Powered: Titans require no sustenance other than sunlight, but are reliant on it. They can act normally on sunny or overcast days, but tend to be less active in stormy weather and barely even mobile at night. When completely deprived of sunlight, they enter hibernation in a matter of hours and remain comatose indefinitely.

---

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WHELP TITAN
PL 4 (43)


OPL: 5; DPL: 4

ABILITIES:
STRENGTH 5, AGILITY 0, FIGHTING 4, AWARENESS 0
STAMINA 4, DEXTERITY 0, INTELLECT -4, PRESENCE --

ADVANTAGES:
Diehard, Fast Grab, Improved Grab

POWERS:
“5 Meter Class”
Growth 4: +4 Str/Sta, +2 Intimidate, -2 Dodge/Parry, -4 Stealth (15 ft., 500 lbs.; Permanent +0) [8]

“Unkillable”
Regeneration 5 (Regrowth) [6]
Immortality 17: 30 seconds (Limited to with nerve node intact -1) [17]
Immunity 16: Aging, fatigue, life support [16]

OFFENSE:
Unarmed +4 (Tough DC 20)
Ranged +0

DEFENSES:
Dodge 0 (DC 10), Parry 3 (DC 13)
Toughness +4, Fortitude +4, Will --

Abilities -8 + Skills 0 + Advantages 3 + Powers 47 + Defenses 1 = 43

3-5 meter Titans, also known simply as “whelps”, are often small enough that even an armed civilian may stand a chance of escaping or causing enough pain to distract them, but an extended fight is a foregone conclusion and victory always temporary due to their regeneration. Whelps are generally assumed to be failed experiments, being smaller and weaker than their makers would’ve liked, but their ability to enter buildings rather than simply pound on them from outside has some utility.

---

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STANDARD TITAN
PL 7 (55)


OPL: 8; DPL: 6

ABILITIES:
STRENGTH 8, AGILITY 0, FIGHTING 6, AWARENESS 0
STAMINA 7, DEXTERITY 0, INTELLECT -4, PRESENCE --

ADVANTAGES:
Diehard, Fast Grab, Improved Grab

POWERS:
“8 Meter Class”
Growth 7: +7 Str/Sta, +3 Intimidate, -3 Dodge/Parry, -7 Stealth (24 ft., 2 tons; Permanent +0) [14]
Speed 1: 8 mph [1]

“Unkillable”
Regeneration 5 (Regrowth) [6]
Immortality 17: 30 seconds (Limited to with nerve node intact -1) [17]
Immunity 16: Aging, fatigue, life support [16]

OFFENSE:
Unarmed +6 (Tough DC 23)
Ranged +0

DEFENSES:
Dodge 0 (DC 10), Parry 5 (DC 15)
Toughness +7, Fortitude +7, Will --

Abilities -4 + Skills 0 + Advantages 3 + Powers 54 + Defenses 3 = 55

7-8 meter Titans, the “standard” class, are effectively invincible against regular civilians and soldiers due to their sheer size, and their vulnerable nerve node is located high enough that it takes special measures to reach. They can easily lift and devour humans, as well as outrun them, but often walk around at a leisurely gait that can give the impression of either dimwittedness or sadistic patience.

---

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GREATER TITAN
PL 10 (67)


OPL: 10; DPL: 9

ABILITIES:
STRENGTH 11, AGILITY 0, FIGHTING 8, AWARENESS 0
STAMINA 10, DEXTERITY 0, INTELLECT -4, PRESENCE --

ADVANTAGES:
Diehard, Fast Grab, Improved Grab

POWERS:
“15 Meter Class”
Growth 10: +10 Str/Sta, +5 Intimidate, +1 Speed, -5 Dodge/Parry, -10 Stealth (45 ft., 30 tons; Permanent +0) [20]
Speed 1: 8 mph (stacks with above for 16 mph) [1]

“Unkillable”
Regeneration 5 (Regrowth) [6]
Immortality 17: 30 seconds (Limited to with nerve node intact -1) [17]
Immunity 16: Aging, fatigue, life support [16]

OFFENSE:
Unarmed +9 (Tough DC 26)
Ranged +0

DEFENSES:
Dodge 0 (DC 10), Parry 7 (DC 17)
Toughness +10, Fortitude +10, Will --

Abilities 0 + Skills 0 + Advantages 3 + Powers 60 + Defenses 4 = 67

15 meter class Titans are somewhat less common than their smaller brethren. Able to reach over buildings and grab a human in one hand, they’re a real threat even to people used to staying out of dodge. Most who get caught can only survive by quickly damaging the Titan’s hand before being crushed or bitten to death, and have to be very careful on the offense. Most Advanced Titans are around this size as well.

---

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ABNORMALS

A general classification for unusual Titan specimens that look or act different from the norm but don't fill the other criteria of an Advanced Titan. They're a major wildcard capable of disrupting plans and tactics based on the Titans' usual predictability. Abnormal traits may include one or more of the following, and can be applied to Titans of any size:
  • Ignoring groups of people and seemingly heading for specific targets
  • Moving on all fours, running more quickly, or performing sudden leaps (Speed ~3, Leaping ~3)
  • Showing unusual cunning in the form of rudimentary tactics and even stealth (enough Stealth to counter the Growth penalty)
  • Having strange enough proportions to affect their combat ability, positively or otherwise
  • Watching or toying with their prey before eating
  • Speaking brief sentences of usually broken human language

---

How you want to interpret "destroying the nerve node" is up to you, requiring some degree of penetrative weaponry or simply enough power to blow off a big chunk of the Titan's body, but it probably shouldn't be a huge problem to most superhumans with enough damage capacity. Nor should Titans in general, for that matter: they're a weapon of terror, best directed at civilians, and all the more horrible for it. To a superhero, even the larger Titans are simply mooks, and the real threat are the people behind them, and/or the Advanced Titans.
Last edited by Levander on Sun Mar 31, 2019 11:31 am, edited 4 times in total.
Levander
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:49 am
Location: Finland

Beast Titan

Post by Levander »

Image

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BEAST TITAN
PL 12 (212)


OPL: 12; DPL: 12
Origin: Attack on Titan
Identity: Ezekiel Jäger (public)
Status: Active at age 113
Nationality: Austria
Languages: German, English, Polish, French, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese
Affiliation: Project Tartaros, Imperium
Special Traits: Transformation into Advanced Titan and creation of Titan Serum

ABILITIES:
STRENGTH 3 [13], AGILITY 2, FIGHTING 5 [10], AWARENESS 3
STAMINA 4 [14], DEXTERITY 0, INTELLECT 7, PRESENCE 3

SKILLS:
Athletics 4 (+6/+16*), Deception 4 (+7), Expertise (Biology & Chemistry) 10 (+17), Expertise (Nazi Official) 4 (+11), Insight 2 (+5), Intimidation 4 (+7/+12*), Investigation 4 (+11), Perception 2 (+5), Technology 4 (+11), Treatment 8 (+15)

ADVANTAGES:
Diehard, Eidetic Memory, Improved Aim, Improved Initiative, Languages, Ranged Attack 4, Skill Mastery (Biology & Chemistry)

POWERS:
“Titan Source Serum”
Feature 1: Can command Titans created by him [1]
Regeneration 1 (Regrowth) [2]
Immortality 15: 2 minutes (Limited to while head is attached -1) [15]
Immunity 1: Aging [1]

“Alternate Form: Beast Titan”
  • “15 Meter Class”
    Growth 10: +10 Str/Sta, +5 Intimidate, +1 Speed, -5 Dodge/Parry, -10 Stealth (45 ft., 30 tons; Permanent +0) [20]
    Speed 2: 16 mph (stacks with above for 30 mph) [2]
    Leaping 4: 120 ft. [4]
  • “Unkillable”
    Regeneration 4 (stacks with above for total 5) [4]
    Immunity 16: Fatigue, life support [16]
  • ”Gigantic Grappler”
    Enhanced Fighting 5 [10]
    Enhanced Dodge 5 [5]
    Enhanced Advantages 7: Daze (Intimidation), Fast Grab, Improved Grab, Improved Hold, Interpose, Skill Mastery (Athletics), Startle [7]
    Enhanced Ranged Combat (Throwing) 4 (+8) [2]
  • “Rubble Catapult”
    Damage 10 (Cone Area +5 [900 ft.]; Distracting -1, Requires pile of debris to throw -1) [40]
  • AE: “Enhanced Throwing”
    Enhanced Strength 2 (Limited to throwing -1) [1]
  • AE: “Hardening”
    Protection 3 (Impervious 13; Distracting -1, Sustained +0) [1]
OFFENSE:
Unarmed +6 (Tough DC 18), Beast Titan +10 (Tough DC 28)
Ranged +4, Beast Titan Throwing +8
Rubble Catapult (Dodge DC 20, Tough DC 25)

DEFENSES:
Dodge 6 (DC 16), Parry 8 (DC 18)
Toughness +4/+14*/+17*, Fortitude +4/+14*, Will +9

Abilities 54 + Skills 23 + Advantages 9 + Powers 111 + Defenses 13 = 210

COMPLICATIONS:
Motivation: Ezekiel’s primary goal is to see just how far he can take his Titan research, but although cynical about their odds of success, he also continues to harbor some enthusiasm for Nazi ideals.
Power Loss: In order to transform into a Titan, Ezekiel must be conscious, determined, and most importantly bleeding, which means he can be restrained from harming himself. Intense emotion may occasionally make him transform unintentionally and go berserk, though he still needs to be wounded first.
Power Loss: If incapacitated or “killed” in his Beast Titan form (without severing his human head), Ezekiel is returned to his human form in an incapacitated state (which his Regeneration 1 will start working on). Whenever he returns to his human form, voluntarily or not, he suffers a degree of fatigue. Trying to assume Titan form a second time in quick succession may result in a partial or otherwise weakened transformation.
Reputation: Ezekiel is a Nazi war criminal of the worst kind, though not necessarily well-known outside expert circles. His human experimentation and overall cruelty did not end with the war.


Born in 1905 in Graz, Austria-Hungary, Ezekiel Jäger was raised by upper middle class parents who resented the loss of national pride that came with the empire's dismantlement after WW1, imparting those beliefs onto him as well. This paved the way for their enthusiastic reception of Germany’s annexation of Austria in 1938, hoping to share in the glory of Greater Germany. At this time, the gifted Ezekiel had gotten his education and become one of the top chemists of his country, and was soon recruited by the R&D branch of the Nazi war machine.

After proving his worth, he was eventually reassigned to the highly secretive Project Tartaros in 1942. He was stationed in a compound in Silesia, occupied Poland, where he became part of the team developing “Titans”, Germany’s most radical and unorthodox super-soldier project. He was one of the top scientists on the job, though for security reasons, none of them had access to all the details, or in fact proper leadership of the project. Nonetheless, they made great progress, moving from warped and useless husks towards ever larger, stronger monsters, though controlling them remained an issue.

In early 1945, their work was badly unfinished (though “nearing a breakthrough”, as such projects always are), yet the war was effectively ending and their area about to be overrun by the Soviets. They released every single Titan they had and ran for the hills, some of them getting caught and tried for war crimes later on while others – including Ezekiel – managed to escape and leave Europe. Ezekiel himself moved to Argentina, like many others, after which he spent several years tracking down the other scientists and their data. Even though Tartaros was over and done with, he had become obsessed with using the Titan Serum they’d developed to extend his own life.

He eventually succeeded, and after years of work, he finally completed the only known sample of the Source Serum in 1964, using it on himself. In addition to enhancing his physical body and effectively making him young again, it gave him the ability to transform into a gigantic “Advanced” Titan, retaining his intellect and reflexes while gaining all the power of a Titan and more. His ape-like Beast Titan form is distinguished by its long, flexible arms, particularly optimized for throwing objects with massive force. Like all Advanced Titans, this Titan is in fact a colossal “flesh construct” that grows around his own body, which remains securely embedded inside the Titan's nape and connected to its nervous system. When he exits his Titan body amidst a rush of hot steam, it stays behind for a while before slowly disintegrating.

The Source Serum also grants Ezekiel the ability to create more Titans, which he can even control, by injecting people with his own spinal fluid. He has a special slot installed in the back of his neck for a syringe to extract it (a “spinal tap” if you will), after which the subject requires several controlled injections over the course of two days. Creating a faster-acting serum that only requires a single injection is one of his main goals, and he also claims to have the ability to turn Titans back into humans, though he has yet to prove this in practice and might just be bluffing.

Having reached his initial goal, Ezekiel kept continuing Tartaros’ research and investigating what other parties, such as the U.S. government, had managed to develop based on it. The next half-century was punctuated by infrequent but well-planned strikes where the Beast Titan would suddenly appear in an area, retrieve what it was looking for, and disappear once more. Starting in the 90’s, Ezekiel joined forces with the Neo-Nazi organization Imperium, cooperating in pursuit of mutual power. He has faced many heroes, rivals, and even other Advanced Titans in his decades of activity; most recently, his plot in 2015 to overrun Madagascar with Titans was foiled by the unusual combined forces of Shrike and the Wyvern, who just happened to be there on their own business.

---

Sorry, Zeke. He’s a bit less of a dick in canon, much less a Nazi, but if I had to pick a single person to be the face of the Titans, he just fits the bill too well (in both forms!). My vision of him is pretty close to canon in the sense that he’s a mastermind type who prefers to create Titans, coordinate them from afar and maybe provide some artillery support, but is no less a fearsome foe in melee if pushed. Far less so in the context of M&M, of course, where there’s plenty of human-sized people who can outpunch his Titan form, but it’s not like giant monsters are ever as strong as they should be (except when they jump straight into unbeatable plot device territory). Still, I continue to think that they make for pretty good "grand" villains, especially when also intelligent.

I don't plan on building more AoT right now, but I'm pretty happy with what I did with them so far.
Last edited by Levander on Sun Mar 31, 2019 11:35 am, edited 3 times in total.
Levander
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:49 am
Location: Finland

HeartStopper

Post by Levander »

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HEARTSTOPPER
PL 9 (135)


OPL: 9; DPL: 9
Identity: Gail “Girl” Girlington (secret)
Status: Active at age 25
Nationality: England/United States
Languages: English
Affiliation: MaMA Association, California Corps
Special Traits: Boxing mastery and bursts of speed

ABILITIES:
STRENGTH 2, AGILITY 6, FIGHTING 9, AWARENESS 2
STAMINA 4, DEXTERITY 0, INTELLECT 1, PRESENCE 4

SKILLS:
Acrobatics (+6/+14*), Athletics 8 (+10), Close Combat (Unarmed) 4 (+13), Deception 4 (+8) (Attractive +10), Expertise (Superhero-Boxer) 8 (+9), Insight 6 (+8), Perception 4 (+6), Persuasion 2 (+6) (Attractive +8)

ADVANTAGES:
Agile Feint, Assessment, Attractive, Defensive Attack, Defensive Roll 1, Favored Environment (Arena), Great Endurance, Improved Critical (Unarmed), Improved Defense, Power Attack, Prone Fighting, Ranged Attack 4, Redirect, Set-Up, Takedown, Taunt

POWERS:
“Bursts of Speed”
Speed 6: 250 mph (Limited to one move per round -1) [3]
Leaping 3: 60 ft. [3]
Movement 2: Wall-Climbing, Water-Walking (Limited to while running -1) [2]
Enhanced Advantages 4: Improved Initiative, Interpose, Move-By Action, Seize Initiative [4]
Enhanced Acrobatics 8 (Limited to Agile Feint -1) [2]

“Improved Evasion”
Immunity 20: Area effects (Limited to successfully Dodged attacks -1) [10]

“Speed-Strike”
Enhanced Strength Damage 3 [3]

“Palpitation Punch”
Affliction 5: resisted and overcome by Fortitude, Dazed+Vulnerable/Stunned+Defenseless/Paralyzed (Extra Condition +1; Quirk -1 [maximum Power Attack only], Unreliable -1 [5 uses]) [4]
  • AE: “Pacemaker”
    STR-based Damage +0 (5 ranks of Multiattack +1, Unreliable -1 [5 uses]) [1]
OFFENSE:
Unarmed +13 (Tough DC 20), Pacemaker +13 (Tough DC 20)
Palpitation Punch +8 (Fort DC 20)
Ranged +4
(FE [Arena] +2)

DEFENSES:
Dodge 13 (DC 23), Parry 13 (DC 23) (FE [Arena] +2)
Toughness +4 (D.Roll +5), Fortitude +9, Will +7

Abilities 56 + Skills 18 + Advantages 18 + Powers 33 + Defenses 10 = 135

COMPLICATIONS:
Arrogance: Girl is used to most of her enemies in her hero work being garden variety crooks and much weaker than her MaMA opponents, which can lead her to act arrogant, neglect using Assessment etc. if the villain of the week doesn’t look particularly threatening.
Fame: Due to her entertainment work, HeartStopper is particularly famous in relation to her power level, having a lot of fans and being recognized by most people in LA.
Identity: Girl tries to keep her civilian identity separate from both her busy life as both a show fighter and a superhero.


Gail “Girl” Girlington was born in Norwich, England, in 1993. Her latent superpowers awakened around the same time she got into kickboxing around middle school, though it’s hard to say which really came first, and she was always a tomboy to begin with. She continued training, and was very upset to find out that having powers actually disqualified her from most professional competitions.

After turning 18, however, Girl decided to follow her dreams and move to Los Angeles, where the first MaMA Association (Masked Martial Arts) had been founded some years ago. MaMA organizes a variety of fights both real and choreographed, allowing people to participate with full anonymity and even use superpowers to a certain degree, realizing that this makes for some truly great entertainment. In her guise as “HeartStopper”, Girl has always performed well, even winning the championship two times in six years.

She’s also decided to make use of her powers outside the ring while simultaneously boosting her popularity, fighting crime in the streets of LA. She often doesn’t seem to be taking the job too seriously, but does it well nonetheless. She has recently been contacted by one of California Corps’ recruiters, becoming an ancillary member on call for whenever the Corps has some work in the area.

---

I just came across this artwork and happened to like the design, so why not, let’s have something a bit more light-hearted to contrast the cannibalistic human experiments. Here’s the original tweet and here a short comic. Almost everything apart from her being a boxer is made up by me. All-in-all a fairly straightforward street-level martial artist with some speedster traits on top. Toying with the established tradition of adding Unreliable onto special attacks so they’re not just spammed out every turn, even if it does feel a bit artificial “realistically” speaking.

I also don’t throw Attractive around a lot, partly because I haven’t built anyone who’d actually make mechanical use of it and partially because everyone tends to be attractive by default yadda yadda, but... she’s a professional performer, her name is goddamn HeartStopper, and let’s be honest, it’s part of the reason the illustration drew my eye to begin with.
Last edited by Levander on Sun Mar 31, 2019 11:37 am, edited 2 times in total.
Levander
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:49 am
Location: Finland

Headless Rider

Post by Levander »

Image

Image

HEADLESS RIDER
PL 9 (190)


OPL: 9; DPL: 9
Origin: Durarara!!
Identity: Celty Sturluson (public but obscure)
Status: Active at age ~1000
Nationality: Ireland
Languages: Irish, English, Japanese
Affiliation: --
Special Traits: Biker dullahan wielding solid shadows

ABILITIES:
STRENGTH 4 [7], AGILITY 5, FIGHTING 8, AWARENESS 3
STAMINA 8, DEXTERITY 2, INTELLECT 2, PRESENCE 0

SKILLS:
Close Combat (Scythe) 2 (+10), Expertise (Transporter) 8 (+10), Intimidation 8 (+8), Investigation 4 (+6), Perception 4 (+7), Stealth 4 (+9), Vehicles 12 (+14) (Limited to ground -1)

ADVANTAGES:
Daze (Intimidation), Diehard, Equipment 9 (Shooter), Power Attack, Ranged Attack 2, Skill Mastery (Vehicles), Takedown, Uncanny Dodge

POWERS:
“Fey Creature”
Immunity 3: Aging, disease, poison [3]
Regeneration 5 (Regrowth) [5]
Immortality 15: 2 minutes (Limited to while head is intact -1) [15]

“Headless”
Feature 1: Head separated from body [1]
Senses 3: Visual (Darkvision, Radius) [3]
Immunity 8: Sensory effects, suffocation, starvation and thirst [8]

“Oozing Shadows”
Feature 1: Quick Change [1]
Extra Limbs 4 (Projection +1) [8]
Elongation 6: 500 ft. (Limited to shadows -1) [3]
Enhanced Strength 3 (Limited to shadows -1) [3]
Enhanced Advantages 4: Chokehold, Fast Grab, Improved Hold, Improved Trip [4]
Movement 3: Safe Fall (Affects Others +1), Swinging, Wall-Crawling [4]
STR-based Damage 0 (7 ranks of Multiattack +1) [7]

“Black Scythe”
STR-based Damage 4 (8 ranks of Alternate Resistance (Fortitude) +1, Improved Critical 2, Reach) [15]

OFFENSE:
Unarmed +8 (Tough DC 19), Oozing Shadows +8 (Tough DC 22)
Black Scythe +10 (Fort DC 23)
Ranged +4

EQUIPMENT:
Vehicle: “Shooter”
Size – M, Strength – 4, Speed – 6 (250 mph) (AE: Leaping 3 [60 ft.]), Defense – 14, Toughness – 14
Features: Autopilot 3, Remote Control, Self-Repairing, Sentient, Shapeshifting, Silent
Powers: Movement 4 (Safe Fall, Trackless [Visual, Olfactory], Wall-Crawling) (8)
Cost: 27+7+8 = 43

DEFENSES:
Dodge 8 (DC 20), Parry 10 (DC 20)
Toughness +8, Fortitude +9, Will +8

Abilities 64 + Skills 18 + Advantages 17 + Powers 80 + Defenses 11 = 190

COMPLICATIONS:
Amnesia: Despite being an immortal fairy, Celty has no memories further than 20 years back. She has developed an entirely different personality in this time, and might change radically if ever reunited with her head and memories.
Disability: Lacking a mouth, Celty cannot speak and usually communicates by typing on her phone. For the same reason, she cannot eat or taste.
Lowkey: Celty has a tendency to avoid using her Oozing Shadows power if the situation doesn’t absolutely require it.
Relationship: Celty is in a somewhat dysfunctional but loving marriage with the human Shinra Kishitani.
Weakness: Damage dealt by cold iron weapons is treated as Incurable, and Celty takes a -5 penalty on any resistance checks against effects involving cold iron or other specific fey weaknesses.


Celty Sturluson is a dullahan, an Unseelie fairy spawned in Ireland about a thousand or so years ago. She presumably spent most of that time riding around terrorizing people as an omen of death, but she remembers none of it: her first memory is from 1996 years ago, lying unconscious on the ground and missing her detached head, which she’d normally be carrying under her arm. She spent some time turning Ireland upside down in search of her head, until her mystical connection to it led her to travel to Japan.

Soon after arriving, her nature was discovered by the 4-year-old Shinra Kishitani, who informed his father Shingen and got Celty into contact with him. Shingen offered to support Celty in exchange for getting to perform research on her fey body, which she accepts, including vivisection. Celty became Shinra’s personal caretaker while also working as an underground courier in Tokyo and searching for any clues of her head, which she could feel was in the area. Contrasting her origins as a death-bringing fairy, the amnesiac Celty developed a rather cheerful but down-to-earth personality, enjoying modern entertainment and human company, often getting mixed up in their business. This would go on for almost 20 years, after which Celty finally discovered her head amidst a lot of drama and excitement, only for all her old memories to return and convince her that she must, reluctantly, leave and cut contact with all her human friends. However, the adult Shinra’s relationship with Celty had developed into a mutually romantic one, and his desperate last-ditch effort led to Celty losing her head and memories once more. Though mad, she still appreciated it in a way, and was happy to stay with Shinra instead.

Shortly after, the pair moved to London, where Celty has continued her career as a transporter while married to Shinra. She doesn’t really consider herself a superhero, but has a tendency to make a lot of trouble-magnet friends and then get really protective of them, in addition to possessing a strong sense of justice overall, which leads her to engage in off-time heroics. The enigmatic Black Rider has become a rather famous figure around London - her headlessness isn't common knowledge quite yet - partly due to her tendency to weave through traffic and all sorts of hazardous shortcuts on her black motorcycle, leading to a lot of idle talk on whether she's supposed to be a hero, a villain, or just a traffic accident waiting to happen. Still waiting, though!

Said motorcycle is actually her also-fey mount, whom she calls Shooter. His natural form is that of a horse with no head, but he can take other forms as well, including a motorcycle with no headlights, a large horse-drawn carriage, and a bicycle. Both Celty and to a lesser degree Shooter possess the ability to extend and control long, solid shadows, using them as tendrils or shaping them into objects, mainly Celty’s clothes and scythe that cuts right through people’s vitality. Despite lacking a head, she can sense the world quite normally through some process involving the black smoke extruded from her body.

---

Hopping to yet another anime build, here's one from Durarara!!, which might be a bit more obscure. I'm probably not doing a lot of builds from there, since she's pretty much the only one I can imagine being "relevant" in terms of both power and attitude - there are a couple more supers, but the show is very local in scale and most of them have no place getting involved in superhero matters, which I'm at least pretending to prioritize here. Probably. Who knows. Shizuo could be fun. Plus, Japan is going to be stuffed with supers by the time I get around to My Hero Academia...

Celty frankly doesn’t make full use of her shadow powers, partly because her native setting is so low-PL with very few exceptions like herself, and she only really fights mundane thugs. In a more widely superpowered setting, she’d have to try a little more, probably power stunting a bunch, but Elongation itself is pretty versatile and allows her to, for instance, grapple people at range to simulate a Snare. She seems to get more powerful when in possession of her head, allowing Shooter to fly among other things, but this would fall somewhere between major character development and plot device transformation.

Lacking a head definitely has its downsides, but it’s a Feature in the sense that it can make someone waste a surprise attack that only throws off her helmet, think they’ve killed her, be freaked out for a moment, etc. Also, Shooter could technically have been a Minion instead, but he never does anything other than drive/run/pedal and only seldom acts without Celty, so I think a special sort of vehicle works best. All-in-all, she ended up a lot more expensive than I thought. The occasional redundancy probably doesn’t help.
Last edited by Levander on Sun Mar 31, 2019 11:38 am, edited 4 times in total.
Levander
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:49 am
Location: Finland

Re: Levander's General Gallery of Goons (Beast Titan, HeartStopper, Celty Sturluson)

Post by Levander »

So far I've been neglecting to give people Languages, because currently at least 13/20 people on the list would need it, but I might go back to do it after all... however, I'd be annoyed by everyone's cost going up a point or two, so I might try a houserule. :)

Anyone can know up to 3 foreign languages without cost, and a situation where anyone's lack of ability becomes plot-critical may count as a Complication. One rank brings you up to 6, two ranks to 12, and three ranks to pretty much "any you can justify", effectively a flawed Comprehend and an unrealistic omniglot. People with language slots left open can later spend a hero point to permanently fill it with a language they retroactively knew all along (at GM discretion and without contradicting previous events).

Of course, anyone internationally active in the modern day is likely to know at least English, unless they're a major fish out of water, and anyone interested in actually using one of these characters should feel more than free to add or switch any languages to make them more practical if necessary.
Levander
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:49 am
Location: Finland

Longscout

Post by Levander »

Image

LONGSCOUT
PL 10 (210)


OPL: 10; DPL: 10
Identity: Samuel Susi (secret)
Status: Active at age 95
Nationality: Finland
Languages: Finnish, Russian, English, Estonian
Affiliation: Finnish Defense Forces (formerly)
Special Traits: Combat expert too stubborn to die

ABILITIES:
STRENGTH 3, AGILITY 6, FIGHTING 13, AWARENESS 4
STAMINA 7, DEXTERITY 2, INTELLECT 2, PRESENCE 0

SKILLS:
Acrobatics 2 (+8), Athletics 6 (+9), Deception 6 (+6), Expertise (Soldier) +10, Insight 6 (+10), Intimidation 10 (+10), Investigation 8 (+10), Perception 6 (+10), Ranged (Firearms) 6 (+14), Sleight of Hand 4 (+6), Stealth 6 (+12), Technology 4 (+6), Treatment 2 (+4), Vehicles 6 (+8)

ADVANTAGES:
Assessment, Chokehold, Close Attack 2, Diehard, Equipment 5, Extraordinary Effort, Fearless, Great Endurance, Hide in Plain Sight, Improved Aim, Improved Critical (Unarmed), Improved Defense, Improved Disarm, Improved Initiative, Interpose, Evasion, Move-By Action, Power Attack, Precise Attack 4 (All Cover & Concealment), Quick Draw, Ranged Attack 6, Skill Mastery 2 (Athletics, Stealth), Takedown, Throwing Mastery 1, Tracking, Uncanny Dodge, Weapon Bind

POWERS:
“Sisu”
Immunity 60: Fortitude and Will effects (Limited to half effect -1) [30]
Regeneration 1 [1]

“Ain’t got time to age”
Feature 1: Longevity [1]

“Weapons Master”
Up to 5 ranks of Multiattack +1 applied to any weapon damage (Variable Descriptor) [6]

EQUIPMENT:
“Custom Gas Mask” Gas mask, Senses 2 (Infravision, Low-Light Vision) (3)
“Stealth Weave” Concealment 3: Normal vision (Partial -1), normal hearing (4)
“Assault Rifle” Ranged Damage 5 (Multiattack) (15)
AE: “Suppressed Pistols” Ranged Damage 4 (Subtle) (1)
AE: “Combat Knife” STR-based Damage 1 (Improved Critical 2) (1)
AE: “Smoke Grenades” Concealment 2: Normal vision (Attack +0, Ranged +1, Cloud Area +2 [30 ft.]) (1)

OFFENSE:
Unarmed +15 (Tough DC 18), Combat Knife +15 (Tough DC 19)
Ranged +8, Firearms +14 (Tough DC 18-20)

DEFENSES:
Dodge 13 (DC 23), Parry 13 (DC 23)
Toughness +7, Fortitude +10, Will +10

Abilities 74 + Skills 40 + Advantages 41 + Powers 38 + Defenses 16 = 210

COMPLICATIONS:
Criminal Record: Should someone want to use it against him, Samuel has committed plenty of morally questionable acts and outright crimes in his past, and is wanted within the European Union.
Motivation: Samuel’s main reasons for fighting include feeling like someone has to do it, wanting to vent his lifelong frustrations, and the fact that he doesn’t really know a different way of life at this point.
Obsession: Though not actively trying to “take back Karelia”, Samuel has some very strong feelings about Finland’s fate in WW2 and related topics, including any and all Russians he encounters.


Samuel Susi was born in 1923 in Viipuri, Finland. However, in the Winter War of 1939-40, the city and the region surrounding it were annexed by the Soviet Union, and Samuel’s family like thousands of others had to leave the area. When the Continuation War started the following year and 18-year-old Samuel was drafted for army, he was more than happy to go out and try to retake his home.

He eventually ended up in the long-range patrol, infiltrating behind enemy lines. His subtle superhuman endurance started to become apparent during these grueling missions, as he never seemed to get tired and barely even noticed getting shot once or twice. This, combined with his dour personality and zeal for combat, got his comrades to use his surname (“Wolf”) as more of an affectionate nickname.

However successful Samuel himself may have been, the war ended in 1944 in further concessions on Finland’s part, and his home was now permanently stuck across the border. This seriously embittered him for life, and he never fully accepted it. He had great trouble adjusting to a civilian society that was just trying to move on, not least because he’d developed an addiction to the amphetamine he was rationed during the war. The war was over, of course, so he had to channel his frustrations in other ways, chiefly by finding more acceptable targets of violence. Thus it could be said that Samuel Susi died, and Longscout was born.

He dropped his addiction (quite easily once he just put his mind to it) and starting in 1950, a strange phantom started popping up wearing old military gear, fighting whatever small-scale crime he came across. However, given the politically tense atmosphere there was a lot of pressure for the government to crack down on vigilantes, especially once the man started specifically targeting Soviet agents, even assassinating a minor diplomat involved in a smuggling operation. Token promises were made, but all attempts to apprehend him ended in failure, and as he’d never seriously harmed officials or civilians, he eventually entered that strange limbo of vigilantes too criminal to accept but not criminal enough that chasing him would be worth the risks. Cases involving Longscout soon started to be swept under the rug with little to no effort put into them.

Though Longscout had some admirers, his liberal use of firearms and lethal force (in a country where the police practically never did such a thing) played a part in making the population very distrustful of him. Nonetheless, Samuel remained active for several decades, sometimes laying low or moving to other countries for several years before inevitably coming back again. His life has been entirely devoted to his vigilante work with no civilian identity to speak of, and he’s spent most of it chasing international crime networks and minor super-villains, though never missing the opportunity to punch a mugger in the face.

Samuel’s mild superpowers are unknown to most, but they’ve had the side-effect of seemingly slowing down his aging to the point that he looks about 60 years old at worst and, more importantly, is still in peak condition. He doesn’t actually consider himself superhuman, though, and just calls it “sisu”. People aren’t always sure if Longscout has really been active for all these years or if the persona has just been inherited by others, especially as he’s changed up his equipment to keep up with the times. However, he’s always worked alone, only teaming up with others very briefly, and will probably continue to do so until the day he dies.

---

There will be non-gun-using, non-WW2 heroes in Finland eventually. Promise. I just had this particular idea kicking around for a while. As alluded to in his bio, the whole gun thing really is kind of weird, given the very strict laws and attitudes towards guns throughout Europe. I realize that gun-users tend to be edgy antiheroes in American comics too, but over here I don’t think there’d even be much space for “grayness”; someone shooting up public areas and killing criminals would land right in the “black”.

I’ll throw in a disclaimer that I’m not trying to flaunt any particularly strong opinions about Fenno-Russian relations, or gun politics for that matter. It’s just sort of an unavoidable topic when dealing with characters from this era, and their bios are likely to focus on the things relevant to them.
Last edited by Levander on Sun Mar 31, 2019 11:43 am, edited 2 times in total.
Levander
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:49 am
Location: Finland

Arctos

Post by Levander »

Image

Image

ARCTOS
PL 10 (155)


OPL: 10; DPL: 10
Identity: Otto Kalakoski (secret, known by officials)
Status: Active at age 30
Nationality: Finland
Languages: Finnish, Swedish, English
Affiliation: Blue Cross
Special Traits: Super-strong and durable half-bear form

ABILITIES:
STRENGTH 4 [10], AGILITY 2, FIGHTING 7, AWARENESS 2
STAMINA 8, DEXTERITY 0, INTELLECT 2, PRESENCE 3

SKILLS:
Acrobatics 2 (+4), Athletics 4 (+8/+14*), Expertise (Superhero) 4 (+6), Expertise (Tax Clerk) 6 (+8), Insight 4 (+6), Intimidation 8 (+11), Perception 6 (+8), Ranged Combat (Throwing) 4 (+7)

ADVANTAGES:
All-Out Attack, Animal Empathy, Close Attack 2, Daze (Intimidation), Diehard, Extraordinary Effort, Favored Environment (Forest), Fearless, Great Endurance, Improved Hold, Improved Initiative, Power Attack, Ranged Attack 3, Startle, Takedown, Trance

POWERS:
“Bear-Souled”
Regeneration 2 [2]
Immunity 10: Cold effects (Limited to half effect -1) [5]
Senses 4: Visual (Low-Light Vision), Olfactory (Acute, Extended, Tracking) [4]

“Spirit Medium”
Comprehend 2: Spirits 2 [4]
Affects Insubstantial 2 (Limited to spirits -1) applied to Strength [1]

“Alternate Form: Were-Bear”
  • Enhanced Strength 6 [12]
  • Protection 5 (Impervious 9) [14]
  • Speed 3: 30 mph [3]
  • “Tooth & Claw”
    STR-based Damage 1 (Improved Critical 1) [2]
OFFENSE:
Unarmed +9 (Tough DC 19/25), Tooth & Claw +9 (Tough DC 26)
Ranged +3, Throwing +7
(FE [Forest] +2)

DEFENSES:
Dodge 7 (DC 17), Parry 7 (DC 17) (FE [Forest] +2)
Toughness +8/+13* (Imp. 9), Fortitude +12, Will +7

Abilities 56 + Skills 19 + Advantages 19 + Powers 47 + Defenses 14 = 155

COMPLICATIONS:
Relationship: Otto is married to his fellow hero The Swan (Marja Kalakoski), and is very protective of her as well as his other allies.
Temper: When any of those allies are in serious danger, Otto has a tendency to edge closer and closer into flying into a snarling rage.
Responsibility: Being part of the Blue Cross, Otto has certain responsibilities as a state-licensed hero.


Otto was born in Viiala, Finland in 1988. He comes from a long lineage of "bear-souled" humans - their own tale goes that it started when centuries ago, a bear killed by a hunter accidentally reincarnated as that hunter's son instead of a bear, passing his might to the eldest child of each generation. Otto is the latest one to inherit that power, but people outside the family haven't really believed in it for a long time, and his mother - the one he inherited it from - didn't really think it was important to care about any ancient duty if such a thing ever existed, instead emphasizing that Otto should live his life however he wanted.

For the longest time, Otto was perfectly happy living just a regular life. He mostly hid his inherited power, studied mathematics in Turku and ended up finding a job as a tax inspector. He met Marja, got married and bought a house. The biggest shock of his life was in 2013 when he found out that Maria was the Swan, a well-known superhero. She expected him to be mad at her for keeping it secret, but was at least as surprised to find out about his bear-soul. After a lot of mutual confusion, Marja suggested that Otto become a hero as well. He was understandably nervous about the whole thing, but buckled to her request.

After a bit of early trouble, he found himself rather enjoying this whole "helping people" thing. He didn't mind his desk job, but ended up leaving it due to time constraints and focusing on heroics instead, joining the official Blue Cross team that Marja was already part of. He'd never really practiced fighting or using his powers much, but they were second nature to him and he took to them rather quickly. If you asked him what the biggest change in the last five years was, though, he'd say it was his beard. The man loves his beard.

---

There's something I like about powerhouses. Must be the muscle.

For reasons I find hard to articulate, I'm wondering if my hero backstories feel kind of samey, at least in the sense of "discovered their powers as a young adult and decided to use them for heroics", but then again, I guess that goes for most comic characters as well. I should probably try and introduce some more esoteric origins. Thoughts?
Last edited by Levander on Thu Oct 04, 2018 8:53 am, edited 3 times in total.
Hoid
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Re: Levander's General Gallery of Goons (Celty Sturluson, Longscout, Arctos)

Post by Hoid »

Seeing Rod Reiss written up as a supervillain ought to be entertaining...
Levander
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:49 am
Location: Finland

Re: Levander's General Gallery of Goons (Celty Sturluson, Longscout, Arctos)

Post by Levander »

Hoid wrote: Fri Sep 28, 2018 8:32 pm Seeing Rod Reiss written up as a supervillain ought to be entertaining...
That sounds like a request, so imma see what I can do. :) I don't necessarily plan on building the whole AoT cast, but they may or may not come out in trickles. I have an idea for how to adapt him to the setting...
Levander
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:49 am
Location: Finland

Rod Reiss

Post by Levander »

Image

Image

ROD REISS
PL 16 (156)


OPL: 16; DPL: 10
Origin: Attack on Titan
Identity: Rodrick “Rod” Reiss (public)
Status: Exploded by the California Corps
Nationality: United States
Languages: English/None
Affiliation: Alexandria Program
Special Traits: One-time transformation into Abnormal Titan

ABILITIES:
STRENGTH 20, AGILITY 0, FIGHTING 0, AWARENESS 0
STAMINA 20, DEXTERITY -4, INTELLECT -4, PRESENCE --

ADVANTAGES:
Diehard

POWERS:
“Leviathan Class”
Growth 20: +20 Str/Sta, +10 Intimidate, +2 Speed, -19 Dodge/Parry, -20 Stealth (300 ft., 1500 tons; Permanent +0) [40]
Impervious Toughness 20 [20]
Movement 1: Slithering [2]

“Unkillable”
Regeneration 5 (Regrowth) [6]
Immortality 17: 30 seconds (Limited to with nerve node intact -1) [17]
Immunity 16: Aging, fatigue, life support [16]

“Population Radar”
Senses 5: Mental (Detect Masses of People; Extended 3, Ranged) [5]

“Gigantic Hands”
Damage 16 (Burst Area +1 [30 ft.]; 10 ranks Limited to Toughness DC -0.5) [27]

“Scalding Aura”
Damage 8 (Burst Area +2 [60 ft.], Reaction +3; Permanent +0) [48]

OFFENSE:
Gigantic Hands (Dodge DC 16, Tough DC 31)
Scalding Aura (Dodge DC 18, Tough DC 23)

DEFENSES:
Dodge 0 (DC 10), Parry 0 (DC 10)
Toughness +20 (Imp. 20), Fortitude +16, Will --

Abilities -26 + Skills 0 + Advantages 1 + Powers 181 + Defenses 0 = 156

COMPLICATIONS:
Disability: Titanized Rod Reiss cannot speak or understand speech, is blind due to dragging its face along the ground (having to rely on its Population Radar to navigate), and cannot stand up without something very large to support its body.
Simple-Minded: The Titan’s only goal is to crawl towards the nearest sizable mass of people, and it will ignore everything else that doesn’t actively get in its way.
Weakness: The Titan’s incredible durability can be bypassed by a sufficiently large attack from within. Its body can be entered through the hole left by its face grinding against the ground, but first it has to raise its head.


Born in 1966 in Jefferson City, United States, Rod Reiss would go on to become a government official and the man in charge of one of many secret research facilities in the Nevada desert. This facility, Compound 32, was part of the Alexandria Program, which governs most of the country’s ongoing efforts to recreate and refine technology previously used by other nations or supervillains.

Compound 32 in particular was working on Project Tartaros’ biological weapon, the Titans; it seems that no matter how many setbacks the U.S. has, they can’t give up on that one. Originally Rod treated it as just a job, and a rather distasteful one no less, but the more he saw of the Titans, the more he grew fascinated with them. He wasn’t the first to become obsessed with their power, and he wouldn’t be the last. However, the biggest issue with Titans has always been how to control them; all past attempts had been either entirely feral, or all too intelligent and willful.

Increasingly frustrated and insane, in 2009, Rod hatched a truly vile plan: he’d use his teenage daughter, Christa, as a test subject to create an intelligent titan that’d be nonetheless completely loyal to him. However, around this same time, the results of some of his previous experiments had wreaked havoc across the state border in California, attracting the attention of the California Corps and drawing Ultraviolet and the Dash to investigate Compound 32. They arrived just in time to distract Rod, allowing Christa to throw his Titan Serum syringe to the ground, breaking it to pieces.

However, Rod finally snapped for good and threw himself to the floor, lapping up the spilled serum with his tongue. This unorthodox use of an experimental serum triggered an explosive transformation into the largest Abnormal Titan seen so far, over 300 ft. in length and too bloated to support its own weight; not quite the Advanced Titan the research had been going for, but perhaps even more dangerous. Most of the underground facility was destroyed, and though the two Corps members got out, the Dash was badly injured while rescuing Christa from the collapse.

The Reiss Titan began steadily dragging its way towards Las Vegas, which would take several hours, but Ultraviolet had no way to stop it, and the Titan's tremendous body heat - high enough to ignite plants in the vicinity - stopped her from getting close anyway. While the military fired away to no avail, she quickly contacted Jack-of-All, who teleported to the Corps headquarters in San Francisco and got fellow member Eject to whip up an immensely powerful thermal explosive, which he then delivered to Ultraviolet. Jack-of-All grew into a giant himself and managed to hold up the Titan’s head just long enough for Ultraviolet to deliver the bomb inside its throat and blow up its whole body mere miles away from Las Vegas, just barely managing to save herself from the blast.

---

Probably a bit easier for superheroes than the original series’ human-level soldiers to take out, but still a decent “puzzle boss” in both cases. It can’t do much other than drag itself forward, swing its big hands and be too hot (hot damn) for most people to approach. Unfortunately, his Titan form is kind of "bland" as far as villains go, being just a mindless lumbering mass; he's more relevant as a mastermind villain in his human form, but doesn't really have any stats of note, being just a desk monkey with grand ambitions, and a lot of subordinates who should really rethink their lives.

Speaking of taking him out, worth noting that even if my bio describes how a villain was defeated and killed, if I ever ended up using these builds, I'd be pretty liberal in retconning any interesting characters and events to take place during the current plot instead.

Also, just remembered that Immortality is kinda weird and immediately restores you to full health, even though that doesn’t really fit the majority of descriptors. I think most people should come back with whatever damage conditions they had before death, especially as most Immortal people also have Regeneration anyway. Immortality is already overpriced in most cases, though, so I’m going to treat full health resurrection as a flat 1-point extra (which none of my builds so far need).
Last edited by Levander on Sun Mar 31, 2019 11:51 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jabroniville
Posts: 24689
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2016 8:05 pm

Re: Levander's General Gallery of Goons (Longscout, Arctos, Rod Reiss)

Post by Jabroniville »

Wow, is that the actual origin of the Titans from the manga? That's interesting. I remember when it was REALLY popular (I go into this in my "Only One Anime" topic), but haven't really kept up with the plot.

This explains the German surnames everywhere, sort of.
Levander
Posts: 91
Joined: Thu Aug 23, 2018 9:49 am
Location: Finland

Re: Levander's General Gallery of Goons (Longscout, Arctos, Rod Reiss)

Post by Levander »

Jabroniville wrote: Sun Sep 30, 2018 12:48 pm Wow, is that the actual origin of the Titans from the manga? That's interesting. I remember when it was REALLY popular (I go into this in my "Only One Anime" topic), but haven't really kept up with the plot.

This explains the German surnames everywhere, sort of.
Oh, no no. The manga takes place in a completely different world with no Germany even existing. I just adapted it to my needs, though I can say there are certain similarities with canon. :P
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