[MnM]Awakenings(OOC)

[Keia]

Here is Josiah Blackburn. Let me know what you think. Suggestions are definitely welcome as I’m not very good at building superheroes.

Josiah Blackburn
PL 6

Age: 15
Gender: male
Height: 5’1”
Weight: 135 lbs
Eyes: Green
Hair: Brown
Skin: Tanned

Attributes: [Cost 10 pts.]
STR: 10 +0 (+5)
DEX: 16 +3 (+8)
CON: 14 +2
INT: 10 +0
WIS: 14 +2
CHA: 10 +0

Defense: 19 [10 + 3 Dex + 6 Purchased] [cost 12 pts.]
Initiative: +3 [+3 Dex]
BAB: +2 [cost 6 pts.]
Melee: +2
Ranged: +5
Speed: 50’ [30 Base + 20 Power]

Damage: +2 [+2 Con]
Fort: +2 [+2 Con]
Reflex: +3 [+3 Dex]
Will: +2 [+2 Wis]

Hero Points: 3

Attacks:

Superpowers:
Telekinesis: 6 Ranks, Extra: Force Field, Energy Blast, Flight [Source: Mutation, Cost 12 pts.](See Below)
Flight: 6 Ranks, Flaw (Extra of Telekinesis) [Source: Mutation, Cost 6 pts.]
Force Field: 6 Ranks, Extra: Energy Blast, Mental Shield, Stunt: Snare, Suffocate, Flaws: (Extra of Telekinesis), [Source: Mutation, Cost 16 pts.]

FEATS: Aerial Combat, Heroic Surge, Indomitable Will, Rapid Healing, Skill Focus: Spot [Cost 10 pts.]

Skills: [Cost 14 pts.]

Acrobatics +4 [1 rank]
Computers +1 [1 rank]
Hide +5 [2 ranks]
Knowledge – Urban +1 [1 Ranks]
Listen +4 [2 ranks]
Move Silently +10 [2 ranks]
Open Lock +4 [1 rank]
Search +6 [6 ranks]
Sleight of Hand +4 [1 rank]
Spot +11 [6 ranks, +3 Feat]
Survival +7 [5 Ranks]

Final Cost: 14 points (Abilities), 12 points (Defense), 6 points (Offense), 34 points (Powers), 10 points (Feats), 14 points (Skills) = 90 points

 

[garyh]

I'm interested if there's still room. I'm reading through the thread now (just read the campaign story), and I figure I'll find out soon enough.

EDIT: Heh, looks like you've got plenty of interest, Shalimar. I'll bow out.

 

[Corinthi]

Demetrius 'Trey' Walker

Background

The Slums of East Baltimore are not a fit place to live for an adult, much less a child. Demetrius was born at Harbour Hospital on June 22, 1996. He was the first child of a 14 year old mother. Demetrius was simply the latest addition to a bustling and sprawling Walker family, all of whom subsisted on financial assistance from the state.

Demetrius was too young for the war to really affect him. Certainly, his family would raise all sorts of heck when thier young men started getting drafted...but those commotions weren't all that different from the wailing in the Emergency Room after a gang related shooting, or the blow ups when one of his cousins were arrested. The older people were always going away for one reason or another and they'd be replaced by more babies. The cycle had variations, but never really changed. Demetrius was a child of his circumstances and his world. Teachers left the young boy be. He was quiet and relatively well behaved compared to the average. He'd follow directs and do what he was told, but never really put forth any effort or showed interest.

The young boy grew up playing gangster and would even serve as a courier for his older relatives, sometimes even holding thier drugs for them. The important thing to remember is that while his overall circumstance was one of misery and hopelessness, Demetrius was a child who didn't know any different. Poverty, hunger, crime, filth, disease, death...it was all just part of life. Nothing to be upset over. Demetrius didn't really have a mother. Well, he did. Tamara was his mother, but she did little to raise him. Instead he was raised by a veritable coven of loud harpies, all of whom knew exactly what was the best for him and knew the other women were dead wrong.

It's little wonder he was arrested young. His older cousins were dealing and having Demetrius serve as a lookout/holder. When the police cars rolled up, Demetrius took off like he was trained to do, dashing down alleyways and using his small size to his advantage. Unforetunately, Baltimore politicos had recently launched a camaign to 'clean up the streets'. Police were under tremendous pressure to arrest every dealer they could find, if only to see them released shortly thereafter from already overcrowded jails. The police caught the young raggamuffin and only barely managed to prevent him from eating the evidence. 10 vials worth of crack cocaine rocks.

Demetrius actually made the news. The seven year old crack dealer was just the sort of novelty the mayor needed to push his campaign of inner city revitalization. Like many of his relatives, Demetrius was tried and convicted. He was sent to the Cheltenham Youth Facility, the oldest youth correction facility in Maryland. Cheltenham was originally crafted to hold 'Youths of Color'...and sadly changed little in the decades since. Despite a 17% black youth population in Maryland, Blacks account for 89% of the inmates in Cheltenham.

Now, for his part, Demetrius didn't really find Cheltenham all that different from home. He was still the quiet kid who didn't get into much trouble. He was still surrounded by a horde of more rambunctious and unruly children. The biggest change was the easier discipline and better food.

Cheltenham was largely locked down when the outbreaks of Absolution began. Civil authorities had bigger issues to concern themselves with than Juvenile crime, and the Cheltenham 'caretakers' were adverse to taking in new children that could possibly be infected. Naturally, all of thier precautions were for naught. When Absolution came to Cheltenham not a single soul was spared.

Now that would have boded /extremely/ ill for Demetrius, had he still been there. Approximately 2 weeks before the first confirmed case of Absolution at Cheltenham, Demetrius escaped. The escape wasn't all that fancy. He just climbed a fence while no adults were watching, but he felt it rather daring. Having seen the news reports of people in Baltimore falling sick from Absolution, he opted to go see if his family was alright. Unforetunately, Demetrius had never travelled on his own, and Cheltenham is a long way from Baltimore, especially when a horrible plague is sweeping a war torn world.

Almost two years later Demetrius was caught again by the authorities. As a young orphan with no apparently family, Demetrius was lucky enough to be one of the initial successful trials of the Absolution vaccine being developed in a Level 5 CDC biolab on the John Hopkins campus.

In the years that followed, Demetrius developed into an intelligent but distant young man. The horror of the world's situation never really sunk in to Demetrius like it did to other people. Demetrius' baseline was misery and fear. That's normal. Comfort, ease, safety, those were somewhat strange concepts to the young man. Heck, it was even unsurprising when it was discovered that rather than being cured, Absolution had somehow mutated in his body. As he had done most of his life, Demetrius peacefully followed the oders of his elders and submitted to cryosleep. As the chill settled around his slim form, Demetrius merely wondered what was coming next.

Personality:

Demetrius is an easygoing guy. He's relaxed and calm even in the face of the most horrible and distressing stimulus. This calm could actually be classified as a mental disorder, sort of a post traumatic stress. Even before the war, Demetrius had little moral guidance or stability in his life. His living conditions were horrid, his education was poorly managed, his friends were are 2nd class citizens forgotten by the 'mainstream'. Demetrius feels a bit disconnected to everything. He doesn't really understand what the world should be like, or why people get upset. It's like they expect life to be good and fair when it's really anything but. The strong prey on the weak, people die, life is hard, and no one really cares about anyone or anything. That's just the way things are. Why fight it?

Despite the blase' philosophy, Demetrius can't help but think there's something missing. He's a kind young man who'd go out of his way to help the hurt or scared. He'd share his lunches with those who lost thiers. He's a genuinely decent guy, not because he should be or because it's expected of him. He's good just because he wants to be. He feels... more in touch, more real when he's lending a helping hand. Maybe if more people felt that way, the world would be different. Maybe.

 

[Corinthi]

I'll edit the above to grammar and spelling, just wanted to get my thoughts aligned. Not exactly certain what I'll do for stats. Didn't want to stat anything until I created the background as to not cloud the process. Probably didn't explain his world view quite well enough. I'll go back and try to elaborate as the character congeals. Any obvious problems I need to address?

 

[Tokiwong]

wow, I have not read the background but has much interest, as much as I wouldn't mind trying it, already in plenty of games, but I will lurk and stuff, not even sure on an idea either, drawing a blank maybe something will come to me when I read which could be bad cause I shouldn't but my brain seems to think I can handle anything

 

[Shalimar]

I'll edit the above to grammar and spelling, just wanted to get my thoughts aligned. Not exactly certain what I'll do for stats. Didn't want to stat anything until I created the background as to not cloud the process. Probably didn't explain his world view quite well enough. I'll go back and try to elaborate as the character congeals. Any obvious problems I need to address?

The most major thing wrong would be what you put in about the cure, er Vaccine. I will be detailing what happened with the vaccine myself, the first patients, etc. Its not a very big problem, just leave that part out. I guess that goes for everyone, there are certain things I will be handling, and Absolution, the vaccine, and the patients are one of those.

 

[Tokiwong]

Absolution.

She was young, but not innocent. A child of the streets, her parents long gone, perhaps she never really had any, a cast off in a harsh time, a lost child in the wind. But people were dying, dying in numbers that was unfathomable, but the only thing that mattered to her was survival. Nothing came easy, and because of it she was smart, and had the instinct for survival, but she lacked the education of a typical youth, reading, writing, she didn’t know how, but she knew where the best place was to find food, or seek shelter, or just how far she had to run before the cops gave up the chase.

She could run.

Running was something that she had done all her life, running through crowded streets, or the empty streets after the Absolution, she ran. Staying idle was just not her way, she wanted to get out of the life that God had set before her, but it took money, it took skill, and luck, but she was determined to make it. She never feared the Absolution, in some ways it would have been a release from her life, watching the more privileged eating a daily meal with hard earned money, laughing with their family, and all she had was the cold. Gangs, other displaced youths, and the authorities always out to round up wayward youths causing trouble.

But she could run.

When the new order was established, she migrated to the city of Hope, hitch-hiking her away across the country. She literally hoped to find a better life in Hope, and although she had little education she was willing to work hard for her money. She didn’t want to steal, she didn’t want to suffer, and for the first time in her young life, she found a place that was truly wonderful. She worked hard, and although the pay was meager, it was more then she could ever dream of, even though she lied about her age to work, she never stole anything, not like the old days. She didn’t have to. She was in a good place. But then there came the tests…

She didn’t know what they were testing for, and when asked to read the pamphlet handed out she just faked it not wanting to reveal that she could not read. She just wanted it to be over, so she could return back to work, and she waited in line, quietly. When it was all over she waited in the office outside, as hours passed, and many left, she felt it odd to be alone, after so many people had passed that she had begun to worry. Had she done something wrong? Had they found out she was working illegally? Not wanting to find out she got up, and started to run.

But she could not run fast enough.

She was one of the 1327 people in the world that had the new strain. Absolution was such a fear that they placed her in Cryogenic storage. The city of Hope had become a frozen Hell, for her, and Absolution would not let her go from its grasp.

Powers: Super Speed with a Light motif, she leaves trails of light behind her when she picks up speed. Incorporeal because she can actually cause her bend to refract and bend like light and lose substance when she runs, passing through solid objects. Have not decided on a name yet, hence the liberal use of she.

Description: Mixed Black and Korean girl, athletic build, very attractive, soft quiet personality, not very arrogant, very modest, and tries not to reveal her many flaws or something

 

[Shalimar]

I'm faced with a bit of a problem with some of the characters, and I don't think its any of your faults, I guess, I just wasn't clear enough, and that is entirely my fault. The Characters that are presented so far have simply but a bit tooo much, I'm not insinuating that you are trying to sqeeze in every drop of power that you can wring out of the system, but there is a bit too much power in what is there.

Perhaps I am going about this all wrong, its been known to happen. All of you characters are meant to be toughher then the rank and file people in the world, but not too much tougher, not to the point where they are not challenging for you. I am aiming for a gritty type game, but with powers that are more four-color then gritt.

Now there are a number of ways for me to fix this. Like someone said, I could Determine powers for you, but while that can be fun, I don't want to leave anybody stuck. I could Lower the PL to bring you in-line with the rest of the world, which is more likely. I could raise the rest of the world to you, but I am very reluctant to do that as I believe it creates a mentality of an escalating power race, where everyone has to be min-maxed just to be viable.

I'd really like all of your input on this, as the game is for all of us, and you have to be happy with it. So which option would you prefer? At the very least, since the character concept is much more important then the stats, I would like to see and approve the character concept before I see any stats.

 

[Tokiwong]

I think you just need to more fully explain the parts where we are coming into conflict is it the backgrounds or the powers oir what? It may just be a lack of communication

 

[Keia]

Shalimar,

Just let us know what about our characters needs to be toned down or changed and we can either tone appropriately or come up with different power groups, etc.

for me, at PL 8, my highest cost power is more of a story issue than much benefit as a power, but I wanted to try the shrinking power. All for suggestions though

Keia