Hound55

Avengers: Heroes United!

<Snipped quote by Hound55>

We're talking Prince Alexei trying to breath after a slight bump to his chest.

@Byrd Man

Avengers: Heroes United!

<Snipped quote by Hound55>

*historical heavy breathing*

@Byrd Man

What level are we talking here? Nero putting out a blazing Rome or Taft walking up a gentle incline?

Avengers: Heroes United!

I think the real genius is that @AndyC has geared it so the incentive to not lose drives the game...

Less likely to get slack when there's actual in game consequences.

Avengers: Heroes United!

I think we do this every single time we get excited. It may be best to not repeat history here and divert our attention in five different directions.

Though I do have that Gotham City sandbox game I’m working on…

@Inkarnate

You try to temper enthusiasm whilst simultaneously hyping Byrd up by dropping the "H" word...

Avengers: Heroes United!

Which was also a concept I had for The Punisher at some point, where one of his kids survived the Central Park massacre and he had to balance killing criminals every night with a suburban life...

@Master Bruce

This is the struggle for all of us, I think...

Avengers: Heroes United!

Spider-Man! Iron Man! Captain America! Manifold!

Avengers: Heroes United!

Spidey, Tony, Cap, and Howard are all APPROVED.

I had to wiki Manifold to see who the heck he is, but he looks good to go once you include a sample post.

@AndyC

One of Hickman's creations.

Avengers: Heroes United!

Player Name: Hound55

Character Name and Alias: Manifold / Eden Fesi

Origin and Brief Bio: Little is known about his youth. Eden Fesi now resides at Kata Tjuta (the Olgas), a place of deep significant spiritual meaning to him and the mutant Gateway; who tutors him in his powers. Eden has been tapped to one day have great impact in global events and both he and Gateway are trying to prepare him for the day this recruitment occurs. The present day.

Powers and Abilities: Manifold is primarily a teleporter who performs this ability by bending reality itself; by folding and contorting spacetime to connect two places using portals. Much like Gateway his portals remain open until he chooses to close them. Unlike some teleporters like Nightcrawler he doesn't need to see where he's teleporting to as this folding of space-time allows him to compensate and ensure he doesn't open a portal in the middle of an object.

He is also a quality tracker, able to survive by himself in harsh environments such as the Australian outback, proficient with early weapons like clubs, throwing sticks, bola, bow and arrow and spears. He is a moderately effective in hand to hand combat, but nothing particularly special in that regard.

Brief Sample Post:

I'm there.

It's a Saturday afternoon at Subiaco Oval, standing room only and Nic Naitanui is lining up for goal from outside the 50 metre arc against Collingwood. The final horn has gone and there's a Four'n'Twenty pie in my hand. I can hardly watch in excitement...

It skews off Nic-Nat's boot. I sigh. The pie falls.

I'm there.

Before meat and pastry even sully the concrete in Perth's stadium I'm standing amongst gum trees on the eastern seaboard.

A private Wolfmother concert is taking place on Russell Crowe's estate. It's night time and I'm rocking out to Andrew Stockdale's guitar and vocals as "Mind's Eye" hangs on the night's air.

"Excuse me, sir? Do you have an invitation?"

I turn and see a man in a suit, wearing an earpiece and sunglasses at night.

"Aww yeah, mate. Sorry. I'm one of Rusty's rugby players. He gave us each an invite on the off chance we couldn't play down in Melbourne tomorrow..." I fumble behind me for the "invitation", he becomes less distracted by the words and more interested in the strange light that's being produced behind me.

"...see I wrecked my finger in training. Ah! There it is!"

I step back towards the light source.

"It was this one! Sit and spin, dickhead!" I show him the middle digit, grab my crotch and fall away from the scene, letting my final words "YOU GUYS ROCK!" hang in the air, called by a man who isn't there.

I'm there.

I sit from a distance and watch the sunset across Uluru. I like to catch this every day. I never watch the sun go all the way down though. Kata Tjuta is about 25 clicks to the west and I like to race the sun and watch it finally fall from there. Music still hangs in my ears as I smile, I caught enough of the air that the sound waves were travelling through and second hand drums and guitar cross not just my own mindscape but the physical plane as well.

A perfectly captured moment.

I watch as the sun winks below the sandstone monolith. It's edge ever so slightly obscured to one side.

My hands dance and reality sings.

I'm there.

I see the old man hovering. I look upon the mighty rocks. We perch upon the Mount like old Wanambi whose breath could forge cyclone-force winds. New protectors of this sacred earth.

I look upon the sun and once again it is winking, as it falls below one of the colossal stones. It's not the only thing winking. He approaches. The spy.

"It's time."

I look back to my elder, Gateway.

"Not him. Just you. You're an Avenger now."

His name is Fury. His stern face doesn't show any right now but i could absolutely believe that plenty lies beneath the surface. Hidden. Like much in this man's life.

I turn to farewell my elder but find him gone. The sound of his laughter hanging on the open air. Carried by the winds Wanambi, the protector of the past can control. Fury feels uncomfortable, but he doesn't understand. He's sending me this message by Wanambi's means to tell me that I'm ready. A perfectly captured moment.

I hope I prove the old man right.

Marvel: Knights of New York

FLINT

In The Neighbourhood

Flint carried his third box up the stairs and into the door marked “EENMITE INC.” followed by a young teenager carrying odds and ends. Melodic bars from Tom Waits’ “Ol’ 55” hanging filling the hallways and hanging in the air; the turntable and collection of vinyl records being in the first box he brought up the stairs. ‘You know they got music digitally now.’ The boy had said.

He knows. He’s aware. ‘Vinyl has a warmer growl to it.’

‘What’s a warmer growl?’ the boy had asked, whilst placing the box carefully where he was directed.

‘Tom Waits…’ Flint had answered with his weathered face’s approximation of a grin.

The boy went down to get more items from the U-Haul trailer whilst Flint began setting up the record player. Carefully placing Closing Time on the turntable and gently dropping the needle, he waited until the music kicked in before going downstairs for the next box. The pair crossed paths in the stairwell. ‘Hey! This is—‘

‘Careful.’ Flint had warned with a furrowed brow. ‘The first rule of this place is that nobody says shit about Mister Tom Waits.’

‘—pretty good, I guess…’ The boy had mumbled. After nearly a dozen more passes, Flint could have sworn he caught the boy humming along to Martha.

After Flint brought up the last heavy box, he set to work on the door, chiselling at the black block letters with a plastic scraper. The office had been unused since it was the administration for a small family run pest control business started by a migrant family with a tenuous grasp of the English language. Something was lost in translation as “Seenmite” did not turn out to be a quality name for an American pest control business, and they also didn’t realize that “Inc” was a suffix reserved for those who maintained a corporate business structure – believing it instead to be purely aesthetic and “something good businesses call themselves”. These were only a few examples of their lack of business sense, and whilst they were good at their jobs (when they could find business) there were also issues of safety violations. Seenmite was swiftly shut down and the office had been vacant for 18 months since – as honest a statement of the state of disrepair the building was in as you could find.

Having finished shaving down the letters to change “EENMITE INC.” into “FLINT” he stepped back to assess his work.

A little lopsided, but the price was right.

‘So that’s the last of it.’ Flint dug into his wallet and pulled out a few wrinkled notes and handed them to the kid. ‘Uhh… these are ones.’ He reached in further and pulled out some fives. ‘You know, this is more than minimum wage for a pizza boy.’

‘Then dial yourself a pizza and get him to haul your stuff upstairs.’

Flint grabbed two tens and gave them to the boy. ‘You know, time was I could have had a bunch of cops here moving all of my stuff in for no more than the cost of a carton of beer.’

‘So where are they now?’

Flint turned over cold. ‘Just take the money, kid… while it’s still on offer.’ The boy knew better than to look a gifthorse in the mouth, at least at this point. He grabbed the paper and ran down the stairs, his house just a little down the street, leaving Flint standing in the doorway to his new office.

Marvel: Knights of New York

MARVEL: KNIGHTS OF NEW YORK

FLINT

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CHARACTER BIO:

Real Name: (former Detective Lieuetenant) Flint
Age: Late 50s. Too old to do anything else, too poor to retire.
Gender: Male
Powers, Abilities, and Gear: Baseline human. Police trained in combat and firearms years ago. Fortunately, this city doesn't let those skills wane. His service weapon - A Smith and Wesson Class 39 from when he came out of the academy.

...as well as a Smith and Wesson model 5906 which may have disappeared from NYPD inventory over the years when the younger rookies were coming through. These things happen.
Origin: Flint was a career cop. Scrapped early on in the Anti-Crime Unit, before being transferred early to Gang Division in the Bronx where he quickly learned the merits of legwork as he was generally kept behind the scenes. He rose up the ranks as his division grew in reputation and was succesful in his application for detective in Central Robbery, first in the Bronx and then Manhattan. His name found wider notoriety when he was the lead officer who closed a number of prominent cases in Hells Kitchen, as the suspects were apprehended unconscious whilst in the middle of another crime. What he first thought was luck, he'd soon discover in the following weeks was the work of a new vigilante who named himself Daredevil. Riding the fame and reputation again he transferred to Major Case Squad at One Polica Plaza where he would be known as a "lifer". His career arc slowed in Major Case Squad, but he learned more about te realities of crime and the police system. He rose to Detective Sargent, but became increasingly jaded (and some suspected dirty) as he fast began to turn into an old burnout, taking shortcuts and beginning to rely on playing in-house politics. This came to a peak when he met Carson Knowles; the victim of a routine B + E and softballed the investigation, since Knowles had overinsured the stolen property. Carson Knowles also happened to be running for New York City Mayordom, on a platform of law and order and planned on drastically changing the upper hierarchy of the NYPD.

Unfortunately... Knowles also happened to be moonlighting as the villain Black Spectre and was attempting to undermine the current administration's record on crime and was also blackmailing several other high officials.

As Knowles campaign beganto unravel, Flint quickly saw the changing tides and leaked evidence and his known whereabouts to the vigilante Moon Knight. The Black Spectre was apprehended and Flint's part in his arrest became public knowledge. The Mayor was re-elected and Flint was a hero.

But a hero who was not trusted by the current administratiion...

Flint was granted the promotion he was due to Lieutenant - the public would allow no less - but was transferred away to helm his own unit where he could be held fully accountable and cause no greater political trouble. A new "sweeper" unit that would come to be known as "The Freak Beat" by other officers. He supervised night shift and held rank over two other "Sargents" the Chief of Police was looking to hide, which would be sufficient personnel to uphold his rank and he'd be the butt of jokes, a symbol of ineptitude for all. The cop who babysits the capes. Keeper of the weird and wild.

And a funny thing happened...

Whilst he'd fast been plummeting towards total burnout he found that this was something that kept life interesting. Sure, a lot of the job sucked, and it felt like your hands were tied in dealing with things most people would find incomprehensible... but it was undeniable, running point on a stock standard home invasion couldn't hold your attention once you've tried to follow through on a search warrant to 177A Bleecker Street.

The gruff detective who spent far too long debriefing and getting reports from self-proclaimed heroes was actually becoming interested in the work again. He'd never admit it to anyone around - neither cape nor cop - but seeing resolution to mysteries tiers beyond the common man's ken held a great appeal... even if he most often wasn't the one closing the cases or doing all of the legwork.

It was an insane response to a man who had dealt with more craziness than most. The ticking timebomb unit that he had been made to helm, he actually enjoyed it.

The bomb's fuse ran out on April 11th, 2014, with a hostage situation on the 88th floor of One World Trade Center. No bigger stage, no greater scrutiny. Flint crossed a line. The unstable vigilante "hero" Moon Knight had allegedly attempted to resolve the situation in an overly bloodthirsty way, further traumatizing several hostages. It also came to light that Flint had knowledge of the fragile nature of Moon Knight's mental state and both enabled his own intervention in the situation as well as obstructed his arrest.

Flint was the obvious sacrificial lamb, as was inevitably going to be the case in his role at some stage. The remaining sargents were subjected to greater scrutiny with the full support of the public and both were made redundant and allowed to leave with their pensions. Flint however, would not be allowed to leave with the same financial security. Flint took a deal to leave without further charges and only a third of his pension in tact.

With no marketable skills and a paltry amount to subsist on Flint was left with only two viable options. Private security or private investigation. He took what little nest egg he had saved up and applied for his PI's license and the rent on an office in a dank building that should probably be condemned and began to run his own operation, an operation with an appetite for, and experience in dealing with, the weirder mysteries.

These are his stories.

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STORY INFO:

High Concept: I'm bringing street-level gumshoe stories with a shades-of-grey character who has a unique view of the capes and cowls who'll be finding himself in the weirder corners of the Marvel street scene.
Motivation and Conflict: I think the Origin makes this pretty clear. He needs money. He has very few options and out of the options he does have he might as well jump into a caseload he finds interesting.
Notes:
Supporting cast (or characters he's familiar with):
Moon Knight (unstable vigilante - the reason Flint has to bust his hump for a PI's pittance)
Daredevil (brighter light of justice - too effective for Flint to have many dealings with)
Carson Knowles/Black Spectre (incarcerated - not one to drop a grudge or election campaign)
This will grow significantly with time.

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PLAYER INFO:

Player Name: Hound55
Preferred Contact Method: PM
Why This Character?: Combines a lot of things I like. Street level characters interacting with things faaaar beyond their purview.
What Can You Bring to the RPG?: An unreliable player who dicks around, but isn't jumping in with two feet on a character you particularly care about.