Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Davies" data-source="post: 8558521" data-attributes="member: 30538">Barry Grimwald<img src="https://photos.smugmug.com/My-First-Gallery/i-MJGw4Sb/0/e46fd482/M/RCO020_1469503336-M.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />When Barnabas "Barry" Grimwald became one of the first students to attend the Futurian Academy for Superpowered Adolescents in 2006, he had no intention of becoming a superhero. Having developed strength, speed and toughness just a bit over the limits of human accomplishment, or so the doctors told him, Barry quickly developed a very straightforward ambition. He was going to be the first member of what he envisioned as an entire league of superpower football players, recruited from all over the world to demonstrate that sports could unite people like nothing else. He was not shy about describing this dream, and was not bothered when people laughed at it. They laughed at the Wright Brothers, too.He held on to that goal for a long time, longer than anyone would have expected, and he actually managed to make some headway on putting those dreams into practice, seeking out potential corporate sponsors and finding other potential players. But by his fourth year in the Academy, even Barry had begun to admit, to himself and to his friends, that the obstacles to the International Football League were a bit more than he could overcome, even with the additional advantage he had discovered in his studies -- the ability to psychically influence probabilities. He might have been able to make the improbable possible, but the difficulties he was facing were completely impossible.So, when he graduated from the Academy in 2011, Barry made the decision to continue the career he had begun with his classmates, under the alias Fullback, and applied to work at Heroic Enterprises soon after it opened up. Despite (or possibly because of) a positive reference from Exelion, he was turned down as not bringing anything novel to the group. (His supposed probability controlling powers were apparently viewed with extreme skepticism by his evaluators, among them Alan Prince.) Frustrated, Barry decided to go it alone, persuading the city council of New Haven, Connecticut, to hire him as their civic defender based on his football iconography. (Walter Camp, the father of American football, attended college at Yale and is buried in New Haven.)For the next three years, Fullback had a respectable if not often all that dramatic career as a superhero; while New Haven had a reputation as one of the most dangerous cities in America, the criminal activity he was required to deal with was largely mundane rather than superpower. Fullback certainly helped to reduce the crime rates in the parts of the city that were viewed as important by the government, and that was all that anyone could ask of him. Except that he felt he should do more, pushed himself ... and suffered serious injuries while attempting to peacefully resolve a domestic dispute as his overtaxed luck finally failed him.Out of action for months, Barry found that the city council had decided not to renew his contract for another year, leaving him at loose ends. That was when Exelion contacted him and revealed that the Academy was about to lose its current physical education teacher when he retired at the end of the year. Obtaining a teaching certificate in Cardiff, Barry returned to his old haunts. The names had all changed since he hung around, but there were still kids who needed to learn the value of a strong body and mind, and who needed to learn their own limits. So he settled in.Barry has acted as a mentor and role model for the students of the Academy for the last seven years. He takes his job seriously, strives to be firm but fair, and has absolutely no tolerance for bullying of any kind. He tries to avoid talking about his personal history with the kids, but will not hide anything about it from those who ask, either. Calling him a failure of a hero will get a firm nod and the reply, "I dare you to do better." However ... especially in the last few years, he has been found occasionally following the students on their "practical experience" expeditions, ostensibly to make sure that nobody gets into trouble they cannot handle. Whether he is trying to relive his own glory days is not clear even to himself, but these adventures have sometimes seen him getting rescued by the students that he was trying to help. But not all the time.Barry is a little uncomfortable with the recently arrived combat instructor, Kathy Scathach. The Academy has never had a formal combat training program before, and he is unsure whether he likes the idea that the kids are going to need this sort of practice to achieve their goals. However, any time that he has considered complaining, he has considered the list of the twenty names on the Memorial Plinth, four of whom were friends of his, and decided to keep his mouth shut. Scathach herself has shown no awareness of his unease.Barry Grimwald -- PL 8Abilities:STR 4 | STA 5 | AGL 3 | DEX 3 | FGT 7 | INT 1 | AWE 2 | PRE 3Powers:Fast Runner: Speed 3 (16 MPH) - 3 pointsKing of the Impossible: Luck Control 4 - 12 pointsAdvantages:Diehard, Evasion, Fast Grab, Great Endurance, Improved Initiative, Improvised Weapon, Inspire 2, Move-by Action, Power Attack, Taunt, Teamwork.Skills:Athletics 7 (+11), Close Combat: Unarmed 3 (+10), Deception 7 (+10), Expertise: Sports 9 (+10), Expertise: Streetwise 6 (+7), Insight 7 (+9), Perception 6 (+8), Persuasion 5 (+8), Ranged Combat: Thrown 4 (+7), Treatment 8 (+9).Offense:Initiative +7Unarmed or Improvised Weapon +10 (Close Damage 4 or more)Defense:Dodge 8, Parry 10, Fortitude 9, Toughness 5, Will 7Totals:Abilities 56 + Powers 15 + Advantages 12 + Skills 31 + Defenses 17 = 131 pointsOffensive PL: 7*Defensive PL: 8Resistance PL: 8Skill PL: 6Complications:Responsibility--Motivation. Misses His Glory Days. Prejudice (American in the UK.) Note: As Fullback, Barry was PL 9 and wore a Removable Costume device with Protection 3 and Senses 2 (extended vision, low-light vision); he also had 3 ranks of Luck as an extra for his Luck Control.</blockquote>

Verification