[hider=Nathan Caldwell][img] https://i0.wp.com/www.radiosefarad.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/alden_ehrenreich.jpg?fit=700%2C466[/img]
[u]Name:[/u] Nathaniel Caldwell

[u]Nicknames/Aliases:[/u] Prefers Nathan

[u]X-Men Code Name:[/u] Caedis

[u]Gender:[/u] Male (He/Him)

[u]Age:[/u] 18

[u]Physical Description:[/u] 6’5”, 180lbs. He is tall and lanky, but is deceptively athletically sculpted. 

[u]Mutations:[/u] Haemokinesis (Blood Manipulation). He doesn’t have a lot of control over the full scope of his powers. However, he does have decent control over manipulating his own blood. He can change its consistency, density, levels of acidity, the speed of flow, and can use these abilities to shift his own blood into things like weapons and armor of sorts to help defend himself. With enough concentration he can use his abilities to stop an enemy in their tracks, can have limited control over their bodies movements, and under the right narrative circumstance could even outright kill them in a variety of ways by using their own blood against them.

[u]Personality:[/u] Nathan is a whole mess with a big heart and an even bigger sense of self-doubt. He prefers to escape from reality whenever he gets the chance. He’s not very confident in himself or in social situations and even among his small friend groups over the years he’s never really felt like he “fit in”. It has always felt as though he was adjacent from everyone else…add in the fact that he’s now afraid of himself, his abilities, and of losing control again…naturally his self-doubt has been turned up to 11. Mostly though...he’s just a guy with the best of intentions that seems to fuck everything up despite that.

[u]Background:[/u] Nathan was raised in a very…”interesting”…family environment. It was toxic and very much not okay. He has a certain amount of psychological damage that can be kept under control only with the right combination of meds and therapy. Without those things he’s an absolute mess. He was brought to the Institute as someone to keep an on. As a potential risk. Just as much to be babysat as taught. Dr. Ashford felt that integration with others like him and the proper supervision could help him keep from going down a darker path. Thus far that has proved correct. He has attended the Institute for some time now and has made both friends and enemies along the way.  

Not long ago Nathan took a temporary leave of absence from the school after being informed about some kind of family tragedy. He didn’t have time to give a proper explanation to his friends or say any goodbyes. Upon his return things are a bit different. Some students have left, others have joined, and things have progressed without him involved. It may take him some time to properly reintegrate, and anyone who has had contact with him since his return can tell that he’s clearly working through something.[/hider] 

I understand that there may be some concern with Blood Manipulation as a power. It’s a lot like Una’s powers in that there can be these big, dramatic bursts of power when it’s right for the story, but otherwise the power is trivial. The wonderful thing about collaborative storytelling is that it's easy to communicate when it is or isn't okay to use your powers in certain ways. His powers would never be used at all without explicit consent from my scene partners or the GM if it's in combat or something like that. There wouldn't be a risk of being OP because the luxury of a play by post game is that you can easily avoid that with communication. 

I have experienced numerous situations where players abused their powers (usually not on purpose). It’s definitely something to be cautious about. The beauty of all of this is that it is so easily avoided, and even if someone abuses a power or goes overboard there is this little thing called the edit button that fixes the problem every time. 

In collaborative storytelling characters should only be OP when it’s right for the story. On the flip side there are times when they don’t have enough control over their powers to even activate them…but only when it’s right for the story. If you follow that guideline (doing what’s best for the story), and have the decency to seek consent from your fellow storytellers as to when those moments are and aren’t appropriate you literally cannot run into problems. Where people run into issues is when they forget that it’s not just THEIR game. This story is told by all of us and when we are mature enough to be aware of that (which we are) then it really doesn’t matter what the powers in play are…it only matters how we utilize them to tell the story.