The Preserver

[coreal]

A few moments of reflection for Paul Petrovski as he sits there looking at the bit of fabric in his hands.

The fuzziest memories are the best ones.  The memories of his parents, he only remembers happiness and warmth in little glimmers of that time. He knows that by age five his father was gone, a tragic bystander caught in a robbery gone wrong.  But he doesn't remember much of that, just his mother crying a lot and keeping him shielded from everything else that was going on.

The next memories are a little more concrete, the three years after that, his mother having to work the extra side jobs to keep things together. But still they were times filled with a few moments of love and family. Not as many moments as he might like, the first years of school involved being dropped at day care so early in the morning... then picked up just in time to eat dinner. He almost didn't notice that his Saturday's at the Boys and Girls Club or the Sunday spent in extended Bible School at church were covers for the half-days his mother was working over the weekends. Almost.

Then there was the evening that his mother didn't make it in time to pick him up right before the cutoff where the day care started charging a dollar a minute. He didn't get picked up five minutes late, or ten, that evening. It was three hours late, after a few hushed phone calls, that a woman in a brown dress picked him up and took him to a strange place to stay the night.  All he can remember is she said 'There's been an accident...' the rest he's lost.  Years later he was able to get the cold, clinical version of what happened.  A high speed chase after a bank heist, the getaway car sideswiping his mother's as she was driving home, sending her down an embankment and into the South River. She must have been stunned in the impact... her seatbelt was still on when the divers got to her half an hour later.

From there it wasn't a trip to the orphanage. He only spent a week in a group home before he was placed with a foster family.  The first of many, as he was a rather angry young man during his tween and teen years. Some of the families tried harder than others, but there was never a good fit, one that would last more than six months as he was passed around from 'temporary arraingment' to 'short term solution'. The one constant was Chanielle his case worker.  She was always there, checking up on him, making sure he at least felt safe.  She was the one person he could count on.  His part time job at the Big Foods wasn't going to be enough to really live off of, but Chanielle had mentioned a transition program she would try to get him into, one that would let him get on his feet as he had to shift into full time work when he was done with school.  A high school diploma wasn't the greatest door opener, but it was better than nothing.  Then some guy had shown up to his next check in, when he asked about Chanielle he'd said in an almost callous manner, "Oh, her, she was on that bus downtown last month." The bus that got shot up in a gang war flare up... he remembered there had been something about four bystanders being caught in the crossfire.

There was no half-way program for him from there. Everything that was in process, the strings Chanielle was pulling, that all fell through.  At eighteen he was on the streets, doing what any healthy eighteen year old desperate for money to keep food in his mouth and pay for a cot in a flop house while he tried to get more hours at Big Foods, or find another job.  He was signing up as a test subject for random drug trials. He heard about a lot of those from people at the flop house. He was smart about it, he used different names for each trial, so he could sign up for a half-dozen of them at the same time.  He was sure he'd get placebos most of the time, or something that wouldn't do anything to him.

And perhaps that would have been just another part of a sad story of his spiraling life, except that all those different drugs pumped into his system.  The combination of experimental chemicals, changed him. Changed him in ways all out of proportion to what any one drug should have done. He had been reporting the tiny side effects, he'd heard that reporting nothing was suspicious, so a little cough, or trouble sleeping, he'd report that.  But what he saw after the change... no reporting that. No reporting how he cut open his leg at work and it healed up before his supervisor could get to the back room. Nope, that would get him shoved into a testing cell under a building somewhere.

At first he was afraid of what had happened, worried about what would happen if anyone found out. But the more he thought about it, the more he considered that he'd finally gotten a break. Now was his chance to turn things around, for himself, and for people like his parents, like Chanielle, those caught in the crossfire in this big city.

He takes a breath.  No more will every protector of the young and innocent be culled by the criminal elements in this city. Not while he can do something to turn the tide, to protect them and all the children they tend in turn. He doesn't need a protector anymore, and now he can be one instead. He will preserve those those that take care of the children of the city, protect them from the criminal elements.  He pulls the piece of fabric up and ties the mask over his face and The Preserver is born.

[Jedaii]

I don't see a superhero. What motivated Paul to defend society rather than use his new powers to get rich? He never had someone in his life to motivate him like an Uncle Ben or Pa Kent. Any other ideas?

[Jedaii]

Bruce Wayne had Alfred to keep him stable. Paul has no one kind of like Frank Castle/the Punisher, who's a crazed vigilante. The best superhero stories are about relationships and legacies. 

[Jedaii]

I'm open to other character ideas as I'm not seeing Paul as a superhero. 

[coreal]

Vignette

He checked the simulation matrix one more time, tweaked a few of the subjective input variables, and then sighed once more as the results were rendered.

0.98

How distressingly close, and yet not close enough to make this mission a success.  Initial estimates before the mission started had this planet on course to be well over a 1.1 on the first contact index by the time he got here. The dangers of trusting Predictive Sociology with data points from fifteen hundred years ago, in local time units per policy, he mentally added to his thoughts.

Time to review the policy guides for just what he should do next.  That close on the index certainly would rate something other than an immediate trip back. One hundred years in a stasis pod just to report that this planet needed to progress just a tiny bit more.

"Create an insert into the society without revealing origin, build up goodwill in anticipation of society reaching contact index threshold."  Seemed simple enough, and the society had developed a rather good mechanism for building up goodwill while being a non-standard being.  Inserting as one of these superheroes would be an acceptable medium, he could continue his mission and get to first contact without having to go back into stasis and just waiting out the decades it might take.

Tek-mal-vi was disappointed, but not crushed by the turn of events.

His species had taken the form of a stellar energy consciousness many millennia ago and had spent time since then travelling nearby galaxies in search of other evolutions of sentience, waiting till they reached a suitably advanced point before introducing themselves.  Wanting to be recognized as advanced species of intelligence and not triggering worship or panic amongst the contacted societies.  Trained in diplomatic methods and xeno-sociology he had come to evaluate and hopefully initiate that contact with this planet.

Unfortunately, the planet earth and humanity were not quite there.  But close enough he could use a special clause in the protocol to get a closer look at this society, and perhaps see it get to the point where he can make that first contact between them and his kind.  He configured the tools on his transport pod to create his carbon based physical encasement form and send him down onto the planet. It wouldn't even need to be the best carbon form they could make, he didn't need one that would shield his entire energy signature, as he would use the leaks as ways to project part of his energy to represent some powers like these super heroes seem to do down there. He would take up the name 'Sunflare' and go about performing the good deeds expected of super heroes, and with a little luck, the society will get to a 1 on the contact scale before the carbon construct starts to fail in 100 or so years and he can progress to his true mission. Until then, he would need to seek out some of these super heroes and join them, the history he has picked up reference leagues, societies, teams... those are the ones that make the big impact, not the ones that work solo.

[Jedaii]

It's a segment of a story: who is this character? What are his motivations? Is he good or evil or ambivalent? What species does he represent and what is their history and goals? He's a big question mark. 

[coreal]

A few facts about Tek-mal-vi and the Ennualti the collective of advanced beings that he represents.

• Tek-mal-vi is a bit of an altruist, willing to dedicate hundreds of years to the shepherding of Humanity to the point they are ready.  He also is a bit of a sociologist, and the opportunity to get in and interact with this society directly is a motivating factor. He wants to know them better, understand without having to lean on indirect methods of observation that have been the primary method up till now.
• The Ennualti are made up of a number of sentient species that have either reached a form of sentient energy, or are on the eon long path to reaching it.
• Tek-mal-vi was a member of one of the species brought along this path, and he isn't actually certain which species in the collective's past was the original species that made the first transition.  They were a multi-limbed and carbon based, that was some very long time ago, but it was a consideration in his being selected for this mission, as his core sense of original identity wouldn't be fundamentally at odds with the species he may have to contact and be in communication with for some indefinite length of time.
• While they are energy beings, they still need physical technology for things like long distance travel, storing information, communication, etc. 
• The process the Ennualti use for meeting and guiding young species is not a single unified process, but instead a collection of policies built up by experience and experiment.  (There are, as a result, quite a few schools of thought on how to go about the various stages of the process, and even which stages are appropriate for each species.)  
• Tek-mal-vi would in general be considered 'law abiding', but he is well aware that laws are a cloudy reflection of the society that makes them.  And he views society on earth and in Freedom City as having flaws that are reflected in the laws as they currently stand. In particular he finds the laws against people acting for the good of society with their own talents (outlawed superheroes) to be a flaw. 
• The idea of forming himself into a superhero, to inject himself into the society and take on that role and become a core member of a superhero group, is a thought experiment.  But given that his primary source of self-growth is conducting thought experiments to see how he can navigate those ideas, he is rather committed to making the experiment work and learning all he can in the process.

 

[Jedaii]

"The idea of forming himself into a superhero, to inject himself into the society and take on that role and become a core member of a superhero group, is a thought experiment ..."

I like Paul better. Run with him 🙂

[coreal]

Character Name: Paul Petrovski Alternate Identities: The Preserver Player Name: coreal		herologo.jpg
CHARACTERISTICS Val Char Base Points Total Roll Notes 25 STR 10 15 25 14- HTH Damage 5d6 END [2] 20 DEX 10 20 20 13-   30 CON 10 20 30 15-   15 BODY 10 5 15     10 INT 10 0 10 11- PER Roll 11- 15 EGO 10 5 15 12-   20 PRE 10 10 20 13- PRE Attack: 4d6                             10 PD 2 8 10   10 PD (0 rPD) 10 ED 2 8 10   10 ED (0 rED) 4 SPD 2.0 20 4   Phases: 3, 6, 9, 12 10 REC 4 6 10     50 END 20 6 50     60 STUN 20 20 60     15" Running 12 3 15m     5" Swimming 4 1 5m     5" Leaping 4 1 5m 205 Total Characteristics Points CHARACTER IMAGE   EXPERIENCE POINTS Total earned: 0 Spent: 0 Unspent: 0 Base Points: 400 Disad Points: 75 Total Points: 398 MOVEMENT Type Total Run (12) 15m [30m NC] Swim (4) 5m [10m NC] H. Leap (4m) 5m V. Leap (2m) 2 1/2m DEFENSES Type Amount Physical Defense 10 Res. Phys. Defense 0 Energy Defense 10 Res. Energy Defense 0 Mental Defense 0 Power Defense 0			COMBAT INFORMATION OCV: 9 DCV: 8   Combat Skill Levels: COMBAT MANEUVERS Maneuver Phase OCV DCV Effect Block 1/2 +0 +0 Block, abort Brace 0 +2 1/2 +2 vs. Range Mod. Disarm 1/2 -2 +0 Can disarm Dodge 1/2 -- +3 Abort, vs. all attacks Grab 1/2 -1 -2 Grab two limbs Grab By 1/2 -3 -4 Move and Grab Haymaker 1/2* +0 -5 +4 DC attack damage Move By 1/2 -2 -2 STR/2 + v/5 Move Through 1/2 -v/5 -3 STR + v/3 Set 1 +1 +0 Ranged Attacks only Strike 1/2 +0 +0 STR or weapon Martial Disarm 1/2 -1 +1 Disarm; 35 STR to Disarm Kidney Blow 1/2 -2 +0 HKA 2d6 +1 Low Blow 1/2 -1 +1 2d6 NND Punch 1/2 +0 +2 7d6 Strike Roundhouse 1/2 -2 +1 9d6 Strike Throw 1/2 +0 +1 5d6 +v/10, Target Falls COMBAT MODIFIERS Range 0-4 5-8 9-16 17-32 33-64 65-128 RMOD 0 -2 -4 -6 -8 -10 Targeting shot OCV Hit Location Head shot (Head to Shoulders) -4 1d6+3 High shot (Head to Vitals) -2 2d6+1 Body shot (Hands to Legs) -1 2d6+4 Low shot (Shoulders to Feet) -2 2d6+7 Leg shot (Vitals to Feet) -4 1d6+12

 

Character Name: Paul Petrovski Alternate Identities: The Preserver Player Name: coreal herologo.jpg
SKILLS Cost  Name   Everyman 0 1) Acting 8- 0 2) Climbing 8- 0 3) Concealment 8- 0 4) Deduction 8- 0 5) Home Region: KS 8- 0 6) Native Language: Language (completely fluent; Custom Adder, literate) (3 Active Points) 0 7) Paramedics 8- 0 😎 Persuasion 8- 0 9) Primary Job or Hobby: Primary Job or Hobby: Gig Driver: PS 11- 0 10) Shadowing 8- 0 11) TF: Everyman, Small Motorized Ground Vehicles   Skills 3 Bureaucratics 13- 3 Combat Driving 13- 3 Southside: AK 11- 3 Streetwise 13- 3 Mechanics 11- 4 Gambling (Dice Games, Sports Betting) 11- 2 Forgery (Documents, Identity Cards) 11- 3 Disguise 11- 3 Teamwork 13- 27 Total Skills Cost PERKS Cost  Name 1 Uber Driver: Fringe Benefit: Membership 1 Car for Hire License: Fringe Benefit: License to practice a profession 1 Fringe Benefit: International Driver's License 5 Contribution to Team Base: Vehicles & Bases 10 Contribution to Team Vehicle: Vehicles & Bases 18 Total Perks Cost TALENTS Cost  Name 24 Fighting Knack: Combat Sense (Concealed (-3 to PER Roll), Sense) 15- Notes: Peter has a knack for things when they get down and dirty, able to go by cues that just don't seem to be tied to any one sense. 24 Total Talents Cost		POWERS Cost  Power END 13 Enhanced Immune System and Healing Factor: Life Support (Immunity All terrestrial poisons; Immunity: All terrestrial diseases; Longevity: 800 Years) 0 57 Enhanced Healing Factor: Regeneration (2 BODY per Turn), Can Heal Limbs, Resurrection Notes: There has to be a core part of him remaining to regrow what's left. So dissolving in acid, burning to ash, being atomized... all will cause death and not trigger the resurrection. 0 15 Tougher Than He Looks: Physical Damage Reduction, Resistant, 25% 0 15 Tougher Than He Looks: Energy Damage Reduction, Resistant, 25% 0 100 Total Powers Cost MARTIAL ARTS MANEUVERS Cost  Maneuver   Dirty Infighting Notes: Skill requirement is Streetwise 11- 4 1) Martial Disarm: 1/2 Phase, -1 OCV, +1 DCV, Disarm; 35 STR to Disarm 4 2) Kidney Blow: 1/2 Phase, -2 OCV, +0 DCV, HKA 2d6 +1 4 3) Low Blow: 1/2 Phase, -1 OCV, +1 DCV, 2d6 NND Notes: Defense is Resistant PD on groin 4 4) Punch: 1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, +2 DCV, 7d6 Strike 5 5) Roundhouse: 1/2 Phase, -2 OCV, +1 DCV, 9d6 Strike 3 6) Throw: 1/2 Phase, +0 OCV, +1 DCV, 5d6 +v/10, Target Falls 24 Total Martial Arts Cost

 

 

Character Name: Paul Petrovski Alternate Identities: The Preserver Player Name: coreal herologo.jpg
DISADVANTAGES
Cost	Disadvantage
20	Hunted: Martel Pharma Infrequently (Mo Pow; NCI; Harshly Punish) Notes: Martel Pharma is the one pharma group that has made the connection between The Preserver and one of their trial experiments. They got a sample of his blood and made a match to blood in their database. Unfortunately (for them) the name and ID associated with the sample were fakes. They would love to get their hands on a fresh sample... and maybe some tissue samples and video of abilities in action.
25	Dependent NPC: Kevin, Monique, Haylee and Tasha Infrequently (Incompetent; Useful Noncombat Position or Skills; Unaware of character's adventuring career/Secret ID; Group DNPC: x4 DNPCs) Notes: Peter has taken to dropping in on the Southside offices of CPS (Child protective services) where he was once part of the system, taking up the occasional lunch with members of the office that worked with Chanielle and knew of the tough luck he'd encountered after her death. He's somewhat landed on his feet, holding down enough gig work to count as a success story, and he shows up when he gets a rejected delivery for a free, sometimes warm meal. He listens in on the troubles they're facing, and in turn has some stable adult context for his own life.
20	Code Versus Killing: (Common; Total)
10	Vulnerability to Electricity: 1 1/2 x Effect (Common)
75	Total Disadvantages Cost
APPEARANCE
Hair Color:	Brown
Eye Color:	Grey
Height:	1.81 m
Weight:	83.00 kg
Description:
BACKGROUND
A few moments of reflection for Paul Petrovski as he sits there looking at the bit of fabric in his hands. The fuzziest memories are the best ones. The memories of his parents, he only remembers happiness and warmth in little glimmers of that time. He knows that by age five his father was gone, a tragic bystander caught in a robbery gone wrong. But he doesn't remember much of that, just his mother crying a lot and keeping him shielded from everything else that was going on. The next memories are a little more concrete, the three years after that, his mother having to work the extra side jobs to keep things together. But still they were times filled with a few moments of love and family. Not as many moments as he might like, the first years of school involved being dropped at day care so early in the morning... then picked up just in time to eat dinner. He almost didn't notice that his Saturday's at the Boys and Girls Club or the Sunday spent in extended Bible School at church were covers for the half-days his mother was working over the weekends. Almost. Then there was the evening that his mother didn't make it in time to pick him up right before the cutoff where the day care started charging a dollar a minute. He didn't get picked up five minutes late, or ten, that evening. It was three hours late, after a few hushed phone calls, that a woman in a brown dress picked him up and took him to a strange place to stay the night. All he can remember is she said 'There's been an accident...' the rest he's lost. Years later he was able to get the cold, clinical version of what happened. A high speed chase after a bank heist, the getaway car sideswiping his mother's as she was driving home, sending her down an embankment and into the South River. She must have been stunned in the impact... her seatbelt was still on when the divers got to her half an hour later. From there it wasn't a trip to the orphanage. He only spent a week in a group home before he was placed with a foster family. The first of many, as he was a rather angry young man during his tween and teen years. Some of the families tried harder than others, but there was never a good fit, one that would last more than six months as he was passed around from 'temporary arraignment' to 'short term solution'. The one constant was Chanielle his case worker. She was always there, checking up on him, making sure he at least felt safe. She was the one person he could count on. His part time job at the Big Foods wasn't going to be enough to really live off of, but Chanielle had mentioned a transition program she would try to get him into, one that would let him get on his feet as he had to shift into full time work when he was done with school. A high school diploma wasn't the greatest door opener, but it was better than nothing. Then some guy had shown up to his next check in, when he asked about Chanielle he'd said in an almost callous manner, "Oh, her, she was on that bus downtown last month." The bus that got shot up in a gang war flare up... he remembered there had been something about four bystanders being caught in the crossfire. There was no half-way program for him from there. Everything that was in process, the strings Chanielle was pulling, that all fell through. At eighteen he was on the streets, doing what any healthy eighteen year old desperate for money to keep food in his mouth and pay for a cot in a flop house while he tried to get more hours at Big Foods, or find another job. He was signing up as a test subject for random drug trials. He heard about a lot of those from people at the flop house. He was smart about it, he used different names for each trial, so he could sign up for a half-dozen of them at the same time. He was sure he'd get placebos most of the time, or something that wouldn't do anything to him. And perhaps that would have been just another part of a sad story of his spiraling life, except that all those different drugs pumped into his system. The combination of experimental chemicals, changed him. Changed him in ways all out of proportion to what any one drug should have done. He had been reporting the tiny side effects, he'd heard that reporting nothing was suspicious, so a little cough, or trouble sleeping, he'd report that. But what he saw after the change... no reporting that. No reporting how he cut open his leg at work and it healed up before his supervisor could get to the back room. Nope, that would get him shoved into a testing cell under a building somewhere. At first he was afraid of what had happened, worried about what would happen if anyone found out. But the more he thought about it, the more he considered that he'd finally gotten a break. Now was his chance to turn things around, for himself, and for people like his parents, like Chanielle, those caught in the crossfire in this big city. He takes a breath. No more will every protector of the young and innocent be culled by the criminal elements in this city. Not while he can do something to turn the tide, to protect them and all the children they tend in turn. He doesn't need a protector anymore, and now he can be one instead. He will preserve those those that take care of the children of the city, protect them from the criminal elements. He pulls the piece of fabric up and ties the mask over his face and The Preserver is born.
PERSONALITY
Paul has been through quite a few bad turns, but his luck has turned and he's determined to make sure that what he went through doesn't happen quite as often to more kids in Freedom City.
QUOTE
"That all you got?!"
POWERS/TACTICS
Paul is a brawler, a mildly enhanced physical fighter with high levels of recovery to be a damage sponge.

Character created with Hero Designer (version 20220312)

 

[coreal]

Hero Designer files involved to look at it another way.

FreedomCityChampions.hdp FreedomCityChampions.hdr Paul Petrovski.hdc

[Jedaii]

Ready for sheet review?

[coreal]

Yes please, sorry, thought I'd tagged it.

[Jedaii]

48 minutes ago, coreal said:

Yes please, sorry, thought I'd tagged it.

Should be done in the next few days and thanks 🙂

[Jedaii]

He has Martial Maneuvers but Martial Arts skill isn't on the sheet? OCV & DCV are okay?

[Jedaii]

Also, I'm adding a team Complication that will require you to adjust:

Renegade Vigilante: Social; Very Frequently, Major; 20 CP

Edited April 8, 2023 by Jedaii (see edit history)