Rogues Gallery - Metahuman Criminal Game

Dastir · 2:18pm

Real Name: Daniel Forrester
Code Name: Belial
Date of Birth: June 6, 1990
Place of Birth: Northside Hospital, Macon, Georgia,
Blood Type: O+
Crimes Committed: 1 count of 1st degree murder

Daniel Forrester was always the brunt of the bullying while he was in school. He was of only average height, but thin and not very strong or physically fit. Growing up in the same rural Georgia town his entire life, and being born to a family without the money for a private education, meant that he was in school with essentially the same people from kindergarten all the way up through high school.

One person in particular seemed to make it his life's goal to torture Daniel every chance he could get. The kid's name was Stan Bowman. He and his cronies were the bane of Daniel's life for as long as he could remember. All the way from pushing him down on the playground and beating him up and taking his lunch money in elementary school to public ally humiliating him and tripping him in the hallway in high school - no trick was below them or ever got old. In their Junior year of high school the hazing got even worse because Stan made captain of the football team and felt that he had even more to prove by demeaning Daniel at every chance.

It all came to a head one day in his senior year when Stan pulled his worst stunt to date. Daniel was rushing from class, with an urgent need to use the bathroom. Stan, along with 6 other members of the football team, intercepted him before he could get there. They surrounded him, knocking him down repeatedly and refusing to let him go despite his pleas to do so. Finally the inevitable occurred, and the stress of the hazing combined with the physical abuse, caused his already overfull bladder to betray him. The urine ran down his legs, soaking the front of his pants and pooled on the floor in a golden puddle. The laughter was riotous. It seemed that everyone in the school was laughing at him. He bolted from the school, leaving his books scattered on the floor, and simply ran.

He came to a stop in a field not far from the school, throwing himself to the ground beneath a tree and simply crying in embarrassment and rage. His thought were consumed with the idea of revenge. Years of humiliation and downright torture came to a head in this young man's brain, and all he wanted was to see them all dead - not just Stan and his loser friends, but everyone in his class. Everyone in his school. Everyone.

He became aware of another presence and looked up. Through eyes clouded with tears he saw a man standing there. Although the man was not remarkable in either looks or dress, there was something about him; an aura of power and strength that was at the same time both comforting and frightening. He told Daniel that he could give him the power he needed to exact his revenge upon those who had humiliated him. He told him that he could give him enough power to assure that nobody every mocked him again. He told Daniel that this was to be a gift, a down payment, as it were, on some future recompense. Without thinking about what the cost may end up being, Daniel agreed.

The pain was intense. It felt like he was being burned to cinders from the inside. When it stopped he noticed that he looked pretty much unchanged and thought for a moment that he had been the brunt of yet another cruel joke. Then he began to notice some changes - little ones at first. The coke bottle glasses he had worn to counter the sever myopia that had plagued him his entire life lay forgotten on the ground next to him. He could now see perfectly clear without them. He felt different too - stronger, somehow, and healthier. His limbs fairly tingled with new-found strength and vigor. The man smiled at him for a moment and then told him to point his hand at the nearby tree and think of fire. He did so and nearly shouted for joy when a stream of blazing fire shot from his hand to engulf the tree. It was unlike any fire he had encountered before, however, hotter, somehow, and... hungrier. That was the only word he had for it. He didn't care, he knew that he now had the tool for his revenge and an evil glint appeared in his formerly innocent eyes. He looked around for his mysterious benefactor, but the man was nowhere to be seen. Again, he didn't care - he had the tools he needed, and now Stan Bowman would pay the price for a lifetime of humiliation.

Daniel played sick for the next few days. He had no desire to return to school and face the repercussions of what had happened to him. Each day he would wait for his parents to leave for work and then he would go out to the back yard and practice with his new powers, using them over and over until he felt he understood exactly how they worked. When he finally felt ready, he donned the outfit he had bought his first day out of school - an all black affair with various chains and buckles and a long black trench coat - all in all, something he would never have worn just a few days earlier. Now, however, as he put the clothes on, it felt as if he had waited his whole life to wear them. The time of vengeance had come, and Daniel tingled with excitement at the prospect.

Unfortunately for Stan Bowman, he was a creature of habit. Every Friday night, he would go to the pizza place downtown and hang out with his cronies from the football team. Daniel approached the restaurant at a slow walk that belied the nervous energy that burned inside him. He walked through the door and right to the booth where his prey was seated. Stan saw him coming, made some snide comment about Daniel's clothes, and those were the last coherent words he ever spoke.

Daniel stared at his hated foe, his eyes burning crimson and laughed an evil, bone-chilling, echoing laugh. All around him, throughout the restaurant, people began to react in fear, some screaming and running for the door, some simply staring open mouthed, paralyzed with terror. In front of him, Stan's sneer quickly turned into a look of utter terror, and he backed into the booth he was sitting at until he came up against the wall. He was gibbering incoherently now, and Daniel noticed with quite a bit of satisfaction that he had wet his pants. For a moment, just a brief second really, Daniel considered ending it there and letting Stan share the same humiliation Daniel had suffered. But then years of abuse and torture came slamming back into his mind and with a final snarl he raised his hand, pointed it at the terrified defenseless boy in front of him, and engulfed him with hellfire. Daniel smiled then, his face a mask of sheer exultation as he watched Stan burn and listened to his terrified and agonized screams. He then turned around and simply walked out of the pizza place and went home. He was sitting there, calmly, in his bedroom when the S.W.A.T. team came, stormed his house, and hauled him away in power nullifying manacles. Daniel did not even try to put up a fight.

There was no trial. Daniel did not deny his crime. In fact, he freely admitted to doing it, and stated unequivocally that given another chance he would do the same thing all over again. His lawyer tried his best to put forth an insanity plea, but in the light of Daniel's complete lack of remorse, the judge refused to even let the case go to trial. Despite being only 17 1/2 years old, Daniel was sentenced to a life sentence in Blackstone Penitentiary, with no chance of parole.

Please see my note in the Motivations/Plot Ideas spoiler before checking out his powers...

Ryfte · 10:20am

Wait... so is this the same game then and something happened to the prior application thread? Gotcha... my submission was definitely NOT what you were looking for, lol. I'll throw down something more appropriate here.

WiP, mechanics done, fluff and layout tomorrow... tired now...

Belleville · Jul 18 '09, 6:58am

Name: Susan Rojek (alias: Hysteria)
Date and Place of Birth: November 14, 1986, Seattle
Blood Type: B positive
Crimes Committed: Theft, extortion, homicide

Further detailsPhysical Description: Small and agile, with black hair and deep purple eyes.

Background: Hysteria first came to the attention of the law two years ago, when she was caught using her powers to sow chaos so she could slip into a government office -- not to steal anything, but to destroy their recordsQuestioning and research revealed that she received her powers from a literal deal with the devil -- or at least with a powerful supernatural being. In exchange for the powers, she had agreed to use them to ruin as many lives as possible -- not necessarily kill, but spread confusion, suffering, and despair.

She was able to escape prison without much trouble, since the authorities were not prepared for her powers, but she was recently arrested again after causing a string of suicides among a company's board of directors. This time, with her powers nullified, she was sent to a more secure prison....

Personality: Chilly and distant, with a pleasure in manipulation for its own sake, and a perverse streak that leads her to cause disruptions for no reason other than amusement.

Motivations/Plot Ideas: Susan's motivation in making her deal with the demon was to escape her boring, soul-crushing former life. It's possible that the demon might show up with some further requirements for her...

The numbers part:

Sheet(0) Str 10
(6) Dex 16
(4) Con 14
(6) Int 16
(8) Wis 18
(10) Cha 20

Attributes total: 34

(14) Attack +7
(8) Defense +4

(3) Toughness +5
(3) Fort +5
(4) Ref +7
(5) Will +9

Combat total: 37

(11) Skills: Bluff 8, Concentration 8, Diplomacy 6, Intimidate 6, Sense Motive 6, Stealth 4, Notice 4

(5) Feats: Attractive, Distract (Bluff), Fascinate (Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate)

Powers

(8) Emotion Control 8
Flaw: Sense-dependent (eye contact)
(8) Confuse 8
(15) Illusion 5 (all senses)
Flaw: Phantasms
(2) Shield 4
Flaw: Only versus attacks from creatures with Int 1 or higher

Powers total: 33

ShadowViper · Jul 18 '09, 1:22pm

Okay... all three of these characters have potential and look to be able to work within the guidelines of what I have and what I'm looking for the game.

Yay!

Dastir · 2:24pm

And two of us got our powers from making deals with the devil...

Satan's Army go!

ShadowViper · Jul 18 '09, 5:08pm

I was going to make a comment about that too... wonderful... Well, it could also be Mr. Infamy...

ChronicLunacy · 6:16pm

I think I might make a sort of very little power/no power Batman-esque type character with lots of combat feats but little in the way of being "superhuman". I thought about giving him Mimic, with only being able to mimic skills or feats, but I'd want to make it perception-range and the cost is too high for the limits you set. Instead, I'll just make him like Deathstroke, in that he uses more of his brain capacity than normal humans, which gives him superhuman reflexes and the mind of a tactical genius.

EDIT: Found great pictures from Marofa at ZBrushCentral. He's going to be wearing a body-armor suit for Toughness save purposes, since he's still mostly human.

ShadowViper · Jul 18 '09, 6:17pm

Deathstroke is a good character for this type of game. The limits are in place so that I can get a handle on some of the concepts out there. M&M is the most flexible game I've come across over the years. Problem is that when you start throwing lots and lots of flexibility at players, they usually take it too far. Hence the limits for now.

Endovior · 4:48am

Real Name: Edwin Gray (No Code Name as of yet)
Date and Place of Birth: April 17, 1987; Seattle, Washington
Blood Type: A+
Crimes Committed: 3 counts of 1st degree murder
Physical Description: Edwin is still fairly young, only being 23 years old. He would be somewhat handsome, were it not for a tendency to scowl. His eyes are pale green, and typically appear filled with contempt, when he even bothers to meet the eyes of another. His hair is dark brown, and he keeps it short, neat, and off his face. His build is reasonably average, if rather more fit then the usual; he weighs in at 157 lbs and is 5'7" tall.
As far as clothing goes, he tends towards casual attire, with a preference for black. He doesn't at all dress in an extreme fashion, and doesn't feel the need to wear any fantastic costumes. He's unlikely to stand out in a crowd.

Until recently, Gray has seemed to be rather normal. His performance in school was above average, but not exceptional... and although testing of his intelligence suggested that he should have been receiving much higher marks, he seemed content to glide by on a B average. He has shown notable antisocial tendencies, and has always been somewhat of a loner. He did have some problems with bullying earlier in his high school years, but he responded to this by taking up a healthy extracurricular interest in the martial arts... and after a few fights, one of which resulted in a three-day suspension for both parties, he was more or less left alone by the other students. He presently holds a second-degree black belt.
These tendencies continues into his more recent college years... up until just recently, he's been continuing on a reasonably consistent path of casual achievement without exerting a great deal of effort. He's been going through the community college system on a path of pre-medical studies, and by all indications would have progressed through the system as normal and eventually gone on to become a doctor.
Before his arrest, he had never been known to have any sort of interest in the supernatural. He was not religious, and neither were his parents, and he was not apparently interested in or involved with any of the varied quasi-magical orders spread across the country. Therefore, it is puzzling as to exactly where he gained the magical knowledge he acquired, and how he's been managing to wield it with such brutal and merciless skill.
When questioned, all he would state is "It's amazing what you can find on the Internet these days." A thorough search of his computer revealed no signs of anything that might relate to that, although forensic analysis of his hard drive suggests a high probability that an encryption scheme was used to conceal his information. The nature of the process used makes it virtually impossible to reconstruct whatever may once have been there, and Gray isn't talking.
Nevertheless, it seems likely that Gray encountered an authentic magical textbook somewhere online, and one of a quality sufficient to warrant its official suppression. Whatever he learned from it must have altered his worldview, or perhaps simply amplified qualities already existing within. In any event, it is certain that he has gained the power to kill with barely a touch, using some evil magical power. It is equally certain that he now exhibits a high-level healing factor of mystical origin, quite possibly of a level sufficient to enable self-resurrection.
His victims, thus far, have been homeless drifter-types who would not be immediately missed. He may have even gotten away with it... but he was not quite discreet enough in disposing of the bodies. He was spotted by a night watchman at a dockside warehouse while attempting to dump the body of his third victim into the bay, and was apprehended within 48 hours following positive identification.

"My experiments have conclusively proven that the exposure of a conscious pattern to any sort of entropic transformation is a fundamentally irreversible process. Given that such transformations inevitably accompany the cessation of neural activity, I can authoritatively state that any conscious pattern not otherwise preserved before such a time is irretrievably lost."
"I don't think I understand. Could you perhaps speak more simply?"
"Tsk. If I must. To phrase it more simply, the processes associated with death of the body also cause death of the self."
"Well, yeah. Death is death."
"No, you don't understand. The physical body is only one medium for the expression of the patterns of consciousness; but those patterns do require a proper receptacle to remain intact. Without an intact and functioning body, complete entropic destruction of the patterns of consciousness will occur both inevitably, and rapidly."
"What?"
*Sigh* "After a person has been dead for a relatively short period of time, they will be permanently dead, as the patterns inherent to their consciousness will decay and be lost. Even with the use of certain advanced techniques, resurrection of the conscious self is completely impossible beyond about a three-day period."
"Wait, since when can people be brought back after being three days dead?"
"There are ways."
"You're not talking about magic, are you?"
"Ugh. That's a very crude and superstitious way of putting it."
"Ah. So you are one of those magicians, then."
"Not at all. I merely have learned to more fully utilize those powers inherent to humanity, through a disciplined regimen of mental exercise and will."
"In other words, you're a magician."
"If you're going to insist on applying that term to me, then this conversation is over."
"Fair enough, though I don't see why you're so stuck up on terminology."
"The methodology employed by most so-called magicians is appalling. I prefer a more scientific and factual approach."
"Suit yourself. So in other words, you've got magic powerful enough to bring people back from the dead after three days."
"It might be called that, yes; although I would note that my skill is not yet to that level. My experiments were interrupted before I had a chance to refine the technique."
"Experiments?"
"Of course. You wouldn't expect me to just waltz into a morgue and try my hand, would you? I needed controlled conditions, bodies which I could monitor the full conditions of through all stages of death and attempted resurrection."
"You monitored deaths?"
"Yes, I did."
"You... caused those deaths?"
"Yes."
"That's going a little far. No wonder you're in here."
"Hmph. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Nobody would've missed them anyways."
"That's quite disturbing, actually. Almost makes me feel kinda good about myself, only being in here for armed robbery."
"If you find theft in a selfish cause to be preferable to murder in the pursuit of knowledge, then we have nothing more to discuss."
"No, I guess not."