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[Mutants & Masterminds] A World Less Magical But No Less Fantastic
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<blockquote data-quote="Davies" data-source="post: 8109753" data-attributes="member: 30538"><p><span style="font-size: 26px"><span style="color: red">Pythia</span></span></p><p><img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/My-First-Gallery/i-cJ8WGrV/0/0e24e737/S/5712068-princess-S.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>As William Shakespeare had Mark Anthony say, "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones." This may be the tragedy of the human species, that we remember the worst of people long after whatever else they were is lost, and that the worst capture the imagination of the world too much more often than those who strive for right. So it was with the woman who started the Pythonian Insurrection, which carved wounds in the world that are still healing, some thirty years after her violent and brutal end.</p><p></p><p>She was born Marya Bouras in New York, 1941, to Greek immigrants to the United States. Very little has ever been discovered of her early life. At sixteen, she ran away to join a traveling circus. While she learned many talents from her fellow performers, her best calling was as a fortune teller and occasional prostitute. It was while pursuing the former career, under the alias Regina Royale, in 1968, that she had her first brush with destiny, when an odd looking gentleman entered her tent and asked her to divine his destiny.</p><p></p><p>There was something familiar about him, but Regina was not really familiar with current events at that point. She dismissed a vague premonition of danger, and described her client's nature in glowing and favorable terms. And then Dr. Ranivorous interrupted her with an expression that might have been the smile of a shark, and told her that everything she had said was the exact opposite of true, that she was such a terrible judge of character as to possess a genuine talent for getting it wrong, and that he had decided to make use of that gift. Regina, no fool, agreed.</p><p></p><p>So she was drawn into a scheme of the Mad Doctor's to trick Captain Mystic into believing that the latter was doomed to destroy the world if he did not abandon it, offering predictions to Captain Mystic that Ranivorous would then secretly fulfill. To assist her in making the plan work, she was given a drug treatment that awakened genuine telepathic powers in her. (Apparently, he expected them to only last long enough to drive her completely insane, and he was surprised when they didn't do that and endured much longer than predicted.) The scheme failed, of course, but the fortune teller avoided both jail time for her role and the need to testify against her 'patron', and then quickly disappeared.</p><p></p><p>Nothing is known about her over the next few years, beyond the fact that she became a single mother in 1970, to a daughter she named Korie. A year later, she would later claim, she was in a bar watching a televised report of the Battle of Vietnam when the scales fell from her eyes and a vision of the future unfolded before her. She saw all that was to be, all that <em>might</em> be, and a way for her and those who followed here to have everything they deserved. At once, she abandoned her old identity, renaming herself Pythia, after the Oracle of Delphi. Unlike that ancient foreteller, though, she would not just council the rulers of the world; she would rule it herself.</p><p></p><p>Through the rest of the 1970s, she built up her forces, gathering the resources of the Stardust Crusaders and dozens of other radical and criminal organizations, uniting them all under her prophetic leadership, convincing ideological enemies that temporary cooperation, guided by one who could see the future, would serve their interests best. She waited a very long time to let them loose, specifically waiting for Basilea to abandon the outer world -- something she foresaw, and might have acted to provoke -- before the Pythonian Insurrection struck. The President of the United States, the Prime Ministers of Canada and Mexico, Fidel Castro, Yuri Andropov, countless leaders and heroes died on the first day of the Pythons' war, and for a time it seemed that the world was about to break.</p><p></p><p>Yet there came an answer to them, and the American Joint Special Operations Taskforce and other agencies began to fight back. And they held the Pythons in check long enough for doubts to begin to set in about the validity of Pythia's prophecies, for none of this had ever featured in any of them. Pythia responded by pursuing various schemes, with varying success, right up until one of the schemes, to augment the morale of her troops, resulted in the so-called mystic who promised her results murdering Korie in the course of their escape.</p><p></p><p>Everything seemed to change for Pythia, then. She increasingly allowed herself to be sidelined by other would-be leaders within the Insurrection, acting as a figurehead and, yes, oracle for them. Some feared that she had lost her mind, for she would often be seen having conversations while completely alone. But there were other reports that she was pursuing a more subtle strategy, allowing the worst consequences of the last years of the Insurrection to fall on the shoulders of others, rather than herself.</p><p></p><p>In the end, JSOT foiled the most ambitious of the Insurrection's last schemes, discovered the location of their secret base (in Delphi, Indiana) and launched an all-out assault. Her organization burning around her, Pythia made no attempt to escape, and was confronted by Shannon and Ken Hazzard, along with Jack Dore. Completely unafraid of them, she proceeded to describe what her visions had revealed to her about the next thirty years, a vision of greater horrors than she had ever perpetrated. At last, Dore interrupted. "Enough," he said. "You're no prophet, or none of this would be happening."</p><p></p><p>"Oh?" she said, and reached into a fold of her tunic.</p><p></p><p>None of them was sure, ever, which of them fired first, but three bullets struck her at once. Pythia left this life with a sigh ... and then Ken Hazzard pulled out the photograph she'd been trying to produce, a picture of her younger self holding up a newspaper dated the day after the Battle of Vietnam, with a date and time marked on it ... and slowly looked up to see the clock on the wall ticking down the remaining seconds of the minute of the hour of the day written down there.</p><p></p><p><strong>Pythia -- PL 7</strong></p><p><strong></strong></p><p><strong>Abilities:</strong></p><p><strong>STR</strong> 0 | <strong>STA</strong> 3 | <strong>AGL</strong> 3 | <strong>DEX</strong> 4 | <strong>FGT</strong> 4 | <strong>INT</strong> 4 | <strong>AWE</strong> 5 | <strong>PRE</strong> 4</p><p></p><p><strong>Powers:</strong></p><p><strong><em>Foresight:</em></strong> Senses 4 (precognition), Unreliable* - 2 points</p><p><strong><em>Mind-Gazing: </em></strong>Mind Reading 7, Limited to Surface Thoughts - 7 points</p><p></p><p><strong>Advantages:</strong></p><p>Assessment, Attractive, Beginner's Luck, Benefit 4 (multimillionaire), Connected, Defensive Roll, Equipment X, Evasion 2, Fascinate (Persuasion), Improved Defense, Improved Initiative, Languages 3 (Greek, Spanish, others), Ranged Attack 2, Skill Mastery 2 (Deception, Insight), Trance.</p><p></p><p><strong>Skills:</strong></p><p>Acrobatics 4 (+7), Deception 6 (+10), Expertise: Criminal 4 (+8), Expertise: History 4 (+8), Expertise: Magic 2 (+6)* Expertise: Streetwise 5 (+9), Insight 6 (+11), Intimidation 5 (+9), Perception 4 (+9), Persuasion 6 (+10), Sleight of Hand 2 (+6), Stealth 4 (+7), Vehicles 2 (+6).</p><p>* INT-based.</p><p></p><p><strong>Offense:</strong></p><p>Initiative +7</p><p>Unarmed +4 (Close Damage 0)</p><p></p><p><strong>Defense:</strong></p><p>Dodge 9, Parry 7, Fortitude 4, Toughness 5/3, Will 9</p><p></p><p><strong>Totals:</strong></p><p>Abilities 58 + Powers 9 + Advantages 22 + Skills 25 + Defenses 14 = 128 points</p><p></p><p><strong>Complications:</strong></p><p><strong><em>Power--Motivation. Family</em></strong> (daughter, until 1986). <strong><em>Infamy. Rivalry </em></strong>(other leaders of the Insurrection.) <strong>Secret</strong> (unreliable precognition)*.</p><p></p><p>* Whether Pythia actually possessed precognition, how reliable her abilities were and when she developed them, are all topics that remain hotly debated. It may have been more reliable than this, in which case she does not have a Secret and some of her active defenses and Advantages might be Enhanced Traits. It may have been nothing more than a set of elaborate lies, in which case she has a different Secret complication and might have Ultimate Effort (Deception).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Davies, post: 8109753, member: 30538"] [size=150][color=red]Pythia[/color][/size] [img]https://photos.smugmug.com/My-First-Gallery/i-cJ8WGrV/0/0e24e737/S/5712068-princess-S.jpg[/img] As William Shakespeare had Mark Anthony say, "The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones." This may be the tragedy of the human species, that we remember the worst of people long after whatever else they were is lost, and that the worst capture the imagination of the world too much more often than those who strive for right. So it was with the woman who started the Pythonian Insurrection, which carved wounds in the world that are still healing, some thirty years after her violent and brutal end. She was born Marya Bouras in New York, 1941, to Greek immigrants to the United States. Very little has ever been discovered of her early life. At sixteen, she ran away to join a traveling circus. While she learned many talents from her fellow performers, her best calling was as a fortune teller and occasional prostitute. It was while pursuing the former career, under the alias Regina Royale, in 1968, that she had her first brush with destiny, when an odd looking gentleman entered her tent and asked her to divine his destiny. There was something familiar about him, but Regina was not really familiar with current events at that point. She dismissed a vague premonition of danger, and described her client's nature in glowing and favorable terms. And then Dr. Ranivorous interrupted her with an expression that might have been the smile of a shark, and told her that everything she had said was the exact opposite of true, that she was such a terrible judge of character as to possess a genuine talent for getting it wrong, and that he had decided to make use of that gift. Regina, no fool, agreed. So she was drawn into a scheme of the Mad Doctor's to trick Captain Mystic into believing that the latter was doomed to destroy the world if he did not abandon it, offering predictions to Captain Mystic that Ranivorous would then secretly fulfill. To assist her in making the plan work, she was given a drug treatment that awakened genuine telepathic powers in her. (Apparently, he expected them to only last long enough to drive her completely insane, and he was surprised when they didn't do that and endured much longer than predicted.) The scheme failed, of course, but the fortune teller avoided both jail time for her role and the need to testify against her 'patron', and then quickly disappeared. Nothing is known about her over the next few years, beyond the fact that she became a single mother in 1970, to a daughter she named Korie. A year later, she would later claim, she was in a bar watching a televised report of the Battle of Vietnam when the scales fell from her eyes and a vision of the future unfolded before her. She saw all that was to be, all that [i]might[/i] be, and a way for her and those who followed here to have everything they deserved. At once, she abandoned her old identity, renaming herself Pythia, after the Oracle of Delphi. Unlike that ancient foreteller, though, she would not just council the rulers of the world; she would rule it herself. Through the rest of the 1970s, she built up her forces, gathering the resources of the Stardust Crusaders and dozens of other radical and criminal organizations, uniting them all under her prophetic leadership, convincing ideological enemies that temporary cooperation, guided by one who could see the future, would serve their interests best. She waited a very long time to let them loose, specifically waiting for Basilea to abandon the outer world -- something she foresaw, and might have acted to provoke -- before the Pythonian Insurrection struck. The President of the United States, the Prime Ministers of Canada and Mexico, Fidel Castro, Yuri Andropov, countless leaders and heroes died on the first day of the Pythons' war, and for a time it seemed that the world was about to break. Yet there came an answer to them, and the American Joint Special Operations Taskforce and other agencies began to fight back. And they held the Pythons in check long enough for doubts to begin to set in about the validity of Pythia's prophecies, for none of this had ever featured in any of them. Pythia responded by pursuing various schemes, with varying success, right up until one of the schemes, to augment the morale of her troops, resulted in the so-called mystic who promised her results murdering Korie in the course of their escape. Everything seemed to change for Pythia, then. She increasingly allowed herself to be sidelined by other would-be leaders within the Insurrection, acting as a figurehead and, yes, oracle for them. Some feared that she had lost her mind, for she would often be seen having conversations while completely alone. But there were other reports that she was pursuing a more subtle strategy, allowing the worst consequences of the last years of the Insurrection to fall on the shoulders of others, rather than herself. In the end, JSOT foiled the most ambitious of the Insurrection's last schemes, discovered the location of their secret base (in Delphi, Indiana) and launched an all-out assault. Her organization burning around her, Pythia made no attempt to escape, and was confronted by Shannon and Ken Hazzard, along with Jack Dore. Completely unafraid of them, she proceeded to describe what her visions had revealed to her about the next thirty years, a vision of greater horrors than she had ever perpetrated. At last, Dore interrupted. "Enough," he said. "You're no prophet, or none of this would be happening." "Oh?" she said, and reached into a fold of her tunic. None of them was sure, ever, which of them fired first, but three bullets struck her at once. Pythia left this life with a sigh ... and then Ken Hazzard pulled out the photograph she'd been trying to produce, a picture of her younger self holding up a newspaper dated the day after the Battle of Vietnam, with a date and time marked on it ... and slowly looked up to see the clock on the wall ticking down the remaining seconds of the minute of the hour of the day written down there. [b]Pythia -- PL 7 Abilities: STR[/b] 0 | [b]STA[/b] 3 | [b]AGL[/b] 3 | [b]DEX[/b] 4 | [b]FGT[/b] 4 | [b]INT[/b] 4 | [b]AWE[/b] 5 | [b]PRE[/b] 4 [b]Powers: [i]Foresight:[/i][/b] Senses 4 (precognition), Unreliable* - 2 points [b][i]Mind-Gazing: [/i][/b]Mind Reading 7, Limited to Surface Thoughts - 7 points [b]Advantages:[/b] Assessment, Attractive, Beginner's Luck, Benefit 4 (multimillionaire), Connected, Defensive Roll, Equipment X, Evasion 2, Fascinate (Persuasion), Improved Defense, Improved Initiative, Languages 3 (Greek, Spanish, others), Ranged Attack 2, Skill Mastery 2 (Deception, Insight), Trance. [b]Skills:[/b] Acrobatics 4 (+7), Deception 6 (+10), Expertise: Criminal 4 (+8), Expertise: History 4 (+8), Expertise: Magic 2 (+6)* Expertise: Streetwise 5 (+9), Insight 6 (+11), Intimidation 5 (+9), Perception 4 (+9), Persuasion 6 (+10), Sleight of Hand 2 (+6), Stealth 4 (+7), Vehicles 2 (+6). * INT-based. [b]Offense:[/b] Initiative +7 Unarmed +4 (Close Damage 0) [b]Defense:[/b] Dodge 9, Parry 7, Fortitude 4, Toughness 5/3, Will 9 [b]Totals:[/b] Abilities 58 + Powers 9 + Advantages 22 + Skills 25 + Defenses 14 = 128 points [b]Complications: [i]Power--Motivation. Family[/i][/b] (daughter, until 1986). [b][i]Infamy. Rivalry [/i][/b](other leaders of the Insurrection.) [b]Secret[/b] (unreliable precognition)*. * Whether Pythia actually possessed precognition, how reliable her abilities were and when she developed them, are all topics that remain hotly debated. It may have been more reliable than this, in which case she does not have a Secret and some of her active defenses and Advantages might be Enhanced Traits. It may have been nothing more than a set of elaborate lies, in which case she has a different Secret complication and might have Ultimate Effort (Deception). [/QUOTE]
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