Indy Cooper

Why We Fight? (WWII with superpowers)

Also verra much interested in this. Especially if'n I could do up a French Resistance fighter.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)

Nicole "Nicky" MacNamara

Character you have created: Nicole MacNamara
Alias: Walker
Speech Color (Actually say what you're using): Azure F0FFFF
Character Alignment: Walking the Line
Identity: Secret, trying to keep it that way

Character Personality:
Nicole is a scrapper, born and bred in the rough neighbourhoods of Hell's Kitchen to a poor family of workers. She knows life is tough, sometimes overwhelmingly so, but she battles on because really, what other choice do you have? She tries to maintain a positive attitude and see the good in the world, but the past three months have not been kind to her, and it's starting to wear pretty hard. It doesn't help that her hormones are raging about, and not showing any signs of cutting back soon.
There are many things that aggravate Nicole, and those fluctuate day to day. But several things drive her at this point. She thirsts, desires like nothing else she's known before, to satisfy her sense of justice. She knows gangs are horrible, and senseless violence bad, but otherwise her sense of justice is entirely based out of what her working-class father managed to teach her, mainly that 'hard work's rewarded, and good prevails'. She is somewhat arbitrary in what she believes might be just or not, and, for example, will happily smash a man in the face for shoplifting. In short, her responses will most likely be physically violent, and sometimes not proportional.
She has found over the last couple of months that she generally enjoys fighting, which is probably not going to endear her to her idol. Also on her list of not-so-heroic traits: She has no problems stealing to live, though not from the poor. Sneaking her way into places, killing those she thinks deserve it, fighting with the police if they try and take her in; None of this is beyond her. She will do anything to achieve her goals.

Uniform/costume:

My Hider

Jacket:

Pants:

Boots:

Add a black bandana across her lower face, blackened goggles, and a baseball cap.

Obviously, once she starts heroing, this should change, but this is all she can get for a disguise for now.

Origin Info/Details: Nicole grew up the youngest of three girls born to a poor electrician and his wife in Hell's Kitchen. She had, as far as she could tell, everything she wanted from life, even if she didn't necessarily eat every night and never got to see parks. But she was happy, and tha was important. She did...okay in school, though she was neither exceptional nor all that motivated. Early on, she got the bug to read her older sisters comics books, and when her mom taught her about Lady Liberty, she was fascinated. She grew up thinking that the only thing she wanted to do was to be a superhero. She got her wish in the most horrific way she could imagine.
She missed the news broadcasts warning that Pax MetaHumana was coming, and Nicole was busy bringing groceries back to her house when she had to take cover from a gang fight that broke out nearly on her tenement building's front step. As she crouched, waiting for everything to calm down at least long enough for her to get inside, the crackling green energy washed over her street, and for just a moment, she knew everything. Just as quickly, that knowledge and her memory of it was gone, and she was left feeling slightly nauseous. Trying to figure out what was going on, she peeked up over the dumpster she had taken cover behind. Which was when the street exploded.
Later, she pieced together what had happened. Apparently, one of the combatants near her had gained the ability to explode forward and detonate like a rocket, somehow without taking damage. One of the opposing folks had developed lightning powers, and a host of minor physical abilities may have occurred on both sides. All Nicole knew at the time was that the dumpster had launched into her in a cloud of flying debris, launching her through the brick wall behind her, and everything went dark as a corner of the building collapsed onto her.
Her parents were both killed in the building's collapse, and one of her sisters was killed by fighting in the streets during the mass panic that occurred. When she woke up and found out what happened, Nicole nearly lost her mind then and there. But the news broadcasts in the area included mentions of the heroes fighting to stop what had killed her family, and somewhere deep down, her mind latched on to the hero Icon as the one who stopped it from happening to any further cities, despite the reality of it being a whole confederation of heroes. She spent several days learning what she could about him, and then, grabbing some gear to keep herself hidden so she didn't get taken in as a runaway, she began the long trek to Lost Haven. She aims to become his apprentice, or at least learn how to hero, and stop things like the Pax Metahumana event from ever destroying another family. Since she is underage, she has had to make her way to the city on foot

Hero Type (Select one): Brick

Power Level (Select one below): Street
Powers (Be Specific):

Set Adrift: Nicole is caught outside of time, temporally unset. Her position in time varies greatly, so much so that, using the "Trousers of Time" or branching dimensions explanation of Multiverse Theory, she exists as the same person in all possible universes, though not physically, because all of those incarnations of her exists at the same point in time, the present. Mentally and spiritually, she is normal, but anything that attempts to affect her physically would have to affect her for all of time, all at once.
Effectively, she is conventionally invulnerable. Kinetic impacts, energy, poisons; nothing can affect her for her entire existence at the moment it happens, and thus is negated entirely, not even capable of breaking the surface of her skin. This also means nothing can change her body from the point she was temporally destabilised. She cannot starve, cannot suffocate, and will not age. Her muscles cannot be damaged, so she enjoys a slight increase of strength over average humans, and can lift more than she should be able to because she doesn't have to fear bone breakage or soft tissue rupture.
Oddly, this does not affect her memory like it logically should, and neural pathways can still form, though only in her brain(see below about muscle memory). She is also slowly losing any sort of fear, due to her complete inability to encounter things that cause her pain. That could change, given what she might face off against later.

Attributes (Select one at each category):

Height: 5'4”
Weight: 127 lbs
Strength Level: Above Human, but not normal meta levels
(Her only augment to strength is not suffering muscle,tendon, or bone damage)
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Human
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: Effectively limitless
Agility: Normal human
Intelligence: Average
Fighting Skill: Untrained

Resources: Minimal
Weaknesses:

She does not age. She is fifteen. While she might enjoy immortality for a little bit, she will never be physically an adult. She will never be taken seriously as an adult. And she is permanently in the final stages of puberty, unable to ever escape the ravages of hormonal fluctuations.
Anything that ignores one's temporal position can affect her as per normal. This means she is susceptible to magical enchantment, psionics, having her soul ripped out, and other things like that. Directly damaging magic, such as hurling a fireball at her, however, still has no effect. Theoretically,if one could do enough damage to affect her for all of time, one could wear down her physical defenses and damage her, but in practise this would be almost impossible except for extremely powerful speedsters.
She isn't all that bright, and as a fifteen year old is convinced that she knows exactly how the world works, despite any evidence that other people might know more than her(with the exception of Icon). While that might change a little over time, it will never completely go away.
Despite being undamageable, she is still subject to all of the other normal physics a one hundred and twenty-pound girl might face. She can be buried in rubble and rendered immobile, launched into space to adrift forever, sunk to the bottom of the ocean, tied up, etc. Her natural strength can only go so far.
Speaking of strength, her unchanging body comes with a curse. She was somewhat strong for her age due to some sports training, but she while she will never suffer muscle degradation, she will never gain muscle mass, either. No matter how much she might need out of her muscles, they will never grow any stronger. She will never get any more flexible, never get any faster, never gain muscle memory for martial training.
Being undamageable has some psychological effects, as well. Nicole is completely reckless, having no concern at all for tactics, delicate situations, or really anything beyond completing her task. She also has a tendency to forget what might hurt or kill normal people.
If anything should infect her somehow, while she would be immune to ill effects, she is the perfect carrier for disease. And no known medical test can possibly work on her, returning nothing but errors or blank screens, needles unable to puncture her skin, etc. Though she can produce saliva, so that's something.
She has no sense of internal timing anymore, saving for those reflexes needed for combat. So while she can time and dodge a punch if she needed to, she is constantly late, having no idea what time it might be even from moment to moment. This effect of her displacement also causes her vision to be slightly blurred in a way no corrective lenses can correct, as her eyes see everything both slightly ahead and behind of its actual position in the present.

Supporting Characters (Does your character have a significant other? A mother? Friend? Who are they, what do they have to do with your character?): Her sister Alice is missing and presumed dead. Everyone else is dead, and as she is also presumed dead, no one is looking for her at the moment.

Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Think I got it down, now.

Berenice the Siren

Character you have created: Berenice
Alias: Siren, Harpy, Bird-lady, assorted other nicknames.

Speech Color: 82ca9d

Character Alignment: Hero(mostly)
Identity: Known, as that's how she introduces herself.

Character Personality:
Berenice would like to be a good person. Trouble with that is that she doesn't know what exactly constitutes a "good" person yet, and just goes by instinct. In fact, much of her thought process is still instinctual. She has the drive to help others in need, but can get in the way because she's not completely aware of what might be the most effective way to go about that goal. She likes children, will defend the helpless, and in general could be described as helpful, but there are some quirks in there. She doesn't understand the concept of pets, and as a carnivore will happily eat a cat, dog, or other small, furry thing, right up until someone tells her it's wrong. She is inquisitive, somewhat bothersome about it, much like a child who asks repeated questions about things because she is, in essence, at a child's level of understanding the world. Her speech is peppered with chirps and other bird noises. She is very magpie like, and will steal shiny objects regardless of intrinsic value. Those few people she has met that she likes enough, she will include in her "flock", and tends to gift them stolen objects and dead animals, at least until they refuse those gifts. She will keep trying until she finds something they like. She also has an annoying habit of trying to perch on those people.

She has no built in moral compass, really, and has had to develop one as she learns. Since her first real contact with the outside world was children in a poor neighbourhood of West Lost Haven, who had already had contact with strange things and were unlikely to run from a non-hostile bird woman, she has found ample reason to copy and learn from them, so she has become playful, energetic, and rather open-minded. The local parents, having yet to meet the "Bird Lady", have been operating under the assumption that the kids have come up with a community imaginary friend or mascot, and both parties are likely in for a surprise when then meet each other, with variable effects on Berenice's psyche depending on how they react to her presence.

Uniform/costume: Berenice is just coming to grips with the concept of modesty, so designing a uniform is kind of beyond her. She typically wears very loose-fitting, light tank tops cut to allow her wings, and a sort of draped loincloth over her waist. Other than that, she doesn't own much.

A good approximation of her looks, though her plumage goes all the way up to her navel from her talons and she has a fanned tail like a hawk's:

[+]

Origin Info/Details: Berenice is the result of a sorcerer trying to channel ancient Greek magic to create a servant for himself. After researching quite a number of possibilities, he decided to try and make a combination of harpy and siren. Gathering what he thought were the correct materials, including several live birds, a female human singer, spell reagents both ancient and modern, and a good bit of raw magic, he focused his mind and cast the almost correct enchantment. Berenice was created, but the resulting backlash of energy blew the unlucky wizard apart and caused a psychic reverberation that destroyed the built-in purpose of serving him in his creation's mind. The only remaining vestige of that is the (incomplete) knowledge of the English language and her name.

The newly born siren meandered about for a bit, fully formed in an adult and with all her instincts in sharp relief, but with no one to tell her what the world she was born into was like, she has had to figure it out on her own. The mage's lair, a shack built on a rocky promontory just west of Lost Haven, was torn asunder by her creation, but she has converted it into a ramshackle nest and hunts and explores from there. Local neighbourhoods would most likely have begun reporting her appearances, were it not for more spectacular displays that regularly happen in and around the city, though curious people could easily find newspaper articles. When she can get away with it, she has begun playing with local children in parks.

She has also begun experimenting with her mystic powers, which are not developed much yet as she has had no formal education. This has, in addition to acting like a sort of beacon letting people with the right senses know there's an inexperienced spell-caster in the area, caused a number of odd phenomenon near her nest, including a sudden increase in non-native plant growth and a growing numbers of people wandering in the area to have memory loss.

Eventually Berenice will probably grow to be a force for good, but for the moment, she is very much in a precarious state, given the wrong influences or experiences, she could very easily become more like the sirens of ancient legend, cruelly luring people to their doom for her own amusement and feeding. This was actually originally the purpose she was created for, and the seed still remains, even if only as a subconscious trigger point for now.

Hero Type: Supernatural/mystic
Power Level: City level
Powers:

BIIIRDDD GIIIIIRLLL

-Magic use: Berenice can, through effort and practise, cause changes in the natural world through the use of mystic forces. These changes include accelerated or decelerated plant growth, attraction and captivation of animals, localised climate variation to make herself more comfortable(very small area of only a few acres), and bewitching weak-willed people into helping her. In addition to those in-born magics, she can learn and utilise written forms of incantations and cast runes and other wards, though she doesn't know any and has no access to them.

-The Siren's Song: Just like those legendary beasts, Berenice can use her voice to captivate those around her. Within a clearly audible range(between 100 and 500 feet, depending on local variables), those hearing her sing become entranced with her, wanting nothing more than to help her and defend her, or even just be near her. While this is a magical, psychic effect, it does not give her control over them, save that most of those bewitched in such away would desire to appease her and grant her requests. This will not cause anyone to do anything they wouldn't normally do, nor does it grant them any sort of abilities they wouldn't normally have. For example, while some carpenter would be more than happy to build a house for her, he could not do the plumbing for it, nor would he turn his hammer and go kill someone for her. A poet would write her a sonnet, but could not suddenly play guitar or use a gun unless he already had those skills.

-Harpy's Scream: As another use of her voice, Berenice can scream. This is extremely loud, noticeable from miles away, and sounds like a hunting hawk's cry. It hits in a flared cone area in front of her, spreading out as the sound waves dissipate and getting progressively less effective the further one is.
At point blank range, up to twenty feet, the combination of sound waves, magic, and wind power create a concussive force capable of breaking bones, stripping air from lungs, and outright killing normal creatures with no defenses. Even those with some survivability will experience hearing damage, burst blood vessels in vulnerable area like the eyeballs and sinus cavity, difficulty breathing, and gale force winds
Between twenty and fifty feet, ear-drums are ruptured without protection and the sound levels can induce unconsciousness, while the magic levels may actually cause temporary psychosis or delusional confusion, as well as being pushed back by force of wind
Between fifty and a hundred feet, the sound levels can cause temporary deafness without protection, and magic effects include dizziness, loss of balance, nausea, and can still knock flying victims out of the air
Between one hundred and two hundred feet, all other sounds are cancelled out, and the decibel level can still cause swift headaches without protection. Magic effects are minimal at this range, though flight can still be disrupted by the wind energy created.
Beyond two hundred feet, this is just an exceptionally loud scream.

This scream will affect any creature that can hear and has no magical defenses against it.

Berenice can keep screaming for astonishing periods of time, up to two minutes with no difficulty. If she goes longer than four minutes, she risks damaging her vocal chords, and after five minutes she can no longer hold the scream and stops, rendering her mute for twenty-four to forty-eight hours while her throat repairs itself.

-Flight: Having wings that are mildly magically powered grants her the ability to fly, even if physics says something of her weight couldn't really get off the ground. As an intrinsic magic, this cannot be dispelled or otherwise turned off unless Berenice is killed, though tying or otherwise binding her wings will still ground her.

-Natural weapons: Berenice's talons are wicked things, easily as capable of piercing flesh as any other raptor might be. Owing to her size, they are around the same claw length and configuration as an osprey, though her grip strength is actually slightly better. They are also well built for both perching or standing on the ground.

-Psychic Immunity: As a magically constructed being of legend with her own pseudo-psychic abilities, Berenice is immune to psychic intrusions of any sort, except those of cosmic or infernal beings. Anyone attempting to read or invade her mind is psychically deafened by birdsong that interrupts all other thought, a cacophony that includes calls of everything from seagulls and crows to parrots and swallows. This assault ceases once they break contact, though it may be disorienting to unsuspecting people just scanning everyone in an area.

-Inheritance: Berenice has some of the natural abilities of the birds used in her creation. She has fairly water-proofed feathers, though she cannot dive like a tern. She can imitate the natural calls of any sea bird, black bird(crows, magpies, ravens, etc), song bird, or raptor. She can dive like a hawk, and has the equivalent level of eyesight. And she can maneuver quite well for her size, moving gracefully like a swallow even if she can't quite change direction as fast because of her inertial force. Her plumage is very hunting-oriented, white on the legs and under the wings, brown black and gold on the tops of her wings and tail. She is capable of subsisting on anything from tidbits of food garbage and week old roadkill to fruits and fresh fish, obviously preferring the latter options. While she has no beak, her teeth are very sharp, and she has only minuscule set of molars, but a triple set of canines and very sharp incisors.

Attributes:

Height: 4'1" (124 cm) normally, but if splayed out completely she's around 5'11" (180 cm)
Weight: 96 lbs (43.5 kg)
Wingspan: 12 feet(3.6 metres)

Strength Level: Normal Human
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Lower than normal walking(awkward), 40 mph flight
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 2 hours
Agility: Below human normal on ground, 5x in the air
Intelligence: Normal human(but uneducated)
Fighting Skill: Untrained

Resources: Minimal

Weaknesses:

Weak bits

Inexperience is the greatest killer, this holds doubly true for Berenice. While she has the fundamental skills to hunt and fish for herself, she has no formal combat training, and lacks even a basic understanding of most weaponry, having never been exposed to it. This means she will not dodge out of the way of guns pointed at her, though swinging a sword is generally a universal sign of hostility. This translates further than combat, however, and into social areas. She does not understand any normal human social cues of facial expressions. Scowling at her to show displeasure or trying to otherwise use subtle hints of anything will have no effect. Much like a trademarked character fro Guardians, she has no concept of subtleties in speech either, and takes everything quite literally, which can lead to a myriad of errors. This is obviously eventually going to stop effecting her through time.

What won't go away, even with hard training, is her strong tendency to distracted-ness. While just waving a shiny object may work in short term until she gets more combat experience, any sort of reflective surface can actually cause her to lose track of what she's doing, a hold-over from the spell used to create her. Her creator originally intended to keep her captivated with a silver mirror when he didn't need her doing something, and while she can break away from normal glass mirrors with some effort, silver mirrors will still hold her fast until removed from her sight. This will be doubly difficult, as she will follow the mirror, trying to stay within arm's length of it and stare into it, until such a time as it is covered or destroyed. Even a shard can do this. Thankfully, this isn't something even she can articulate, and the sourcerer's notes were destroyed, but experimentation could reveal this.
Music, oddly, can also entrance her, though not to the same extent. While it won't pull her out of combat, playing any sort of rhythmic music will cause her to lose track of time and just sing or hum along, especially wood winds and harp or bowed strings. She'll snap out of it only when someone actively tells her to get a move on, or she gets hungry enough.

Berenice has absolutely no defenses against cosmic creatures, and will have to fight them using her own talons, weapons, and magic. Olympian "gods", especially Poseidon, Aphrodite, and Zeus, can command her unrelenting obedience, as they are from her "pantheon".

Despite being made of magic, Berenice is a flesh and blood creature, and can be hurt by any and all conventional means. Guns, knives, punches, being hit with a car, etc. If she knew spells for it that could change, but she is not naturally armoured in any way, form, or fashion, with the notable exceptions of having a solid skeletal structure unlike most avians, and the hardened plates of her talons.

Berenice has all of the normal mobility limitations of birds. She can't really walk, having to resort instead the the rolling, hopping gait most birds do when on the ground. This is awkward to move about with, and she is easily caught off balance when landed. Perching doesn't cause nearly as many problems. Taking off from the ground requires several beats and hops to get moving enough, and is much easier from a high place.

Supporting Characters (Does your character have a significant other? A mother? Friend? Who are they, what do they have to do with your character?):
While not having direct knowledge of her, her creator's teacher is very interested in finding out what the hell happened to his student. He is an exceptional magic user, but the student was studying by himself at an undisclosed-to-his-master location, and the man is having no easy time finding the place.
The singer used as a sacrifice for the spell that created Berenice can still be seen in her face. Her mind and personality are gone, but any of her former friends, family, or associates will be able to recognise her face if they see her. Attempts to bring back the "real" girl will be useless, but it'll probably cause no ends of problems. The police are also interested in the reported disappearance, investigation of which has yielded evidence of kidnapping and trace amounts of magic. The detective in charge of her case in George Owens, LHPD Missing Persons Unit.

Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Not yet, I only really know how to link urls.

Sample Post:

Sample

Detective George Owens was not having the best night of his career, though he did have to be thankful that these people were at least more rational than most he saw when working missing persons cases. Looking across the interview table, he took them in again, in more detail than he had when they had first approached his desk. They were obviously young, a male and female in their very early twenties. The guy had a short mohawk that he had left down for the day, though the vibrant pink was defintely still distracting. The girl had a pixie cut in vivid blue, and Owens had already mentally filed them as "The Bubblegum Kids". Both had a multitude of piercings and wore torn up jeans and t-shirts declaring some quite rude things about authority figures, which did nothing to endear them to him. According to his notes, they were from a band in Portland known as "Raccoon's Stank", apparently some two-piece punk outfit.
"So," he said, pondering the evidence so far. "While you two had some hostile interactions with Ms. Graves, you say no one ever got violent?"
The girl nodded. "Yeah, she was always super bitchy about our music, y'know? Always actin' all superior an' shit. But we always just yelled at each other." The boy grinned. "There were some things I woulda liked ta do, but they weren't violent, y'know?"
Owens repressed a shudder. Creepy little kids. "Neither of you happen to know of anyone she might have ticked off, made enemies with? She didn't appear to have powers, right?"
The boy shrugged this time. "Not that I know of, man. She acted all Stevie Nicks, so I dunno how many people she mighta pissed off. As far as I know everyone here's freaks, but I never saw her do anything weird."
"Alright, thanks for your time. See the desk sergeant if you need anything." Owens got up, let them out of the interview room, and made his way back to his desk. Slouching into his chair, he flipped open the case file and sighed. he picture of the victim was fairly good, a recent picture of a girl with a long and pointed chin, arched eyebrows, and a cheery smile under a dainty nose, all framed with wavy golden brown hair. He hated cases like this. On the surface it was a clear-cut break in, with signs of a struggle everywhere. Couch flipped over, glass from picture frames over the floor, door busted in despite the deadbolt. But then the Sniffer had caught whiff of magic and everything went topsy-turvy.
Normally, he'd call it as a kidnapping with purpose for either human trafficking or some sick bastard doing the usual assault stuff, but magic made everything more complicated. The Mystics Unit detective had thrown all sorts of terms at him he didn't understand and had cleared everyone out while they got a "signature", but that had come up empty. Trace elements told them that some sort of enchantment and necromancy had taken place, but matched no known profile, so that was mostly a dead end. While the were following leads, their office was swamped almost as bad as the Meta-Crimes Department, so who even knew when they'd get back to him with something he could go on?
In the mean time, he had had to make the most traumatic call in any of these cases, the dreaded next-of-kin notification. After the usual hysterics, the parents had calmed down enough to give him relevant information. The victim, one Gloria Julianne Addams, age nineteen, had worked as a waitress locally while going through music school, and was a sophomore at the local community college and performed as a singer in a garage band that did some shows in the local region, though was nowhere near big enough for an obsessed fan theory. Both workplace and school had only turned up mild leads which went nowhere, and the band members were genuinely devastated to learn of their vocalist's disappearance. Leaving Owens with nothing to work with.
He was tired of this sort of crap. He had considered transferring to another unit, he thought idly as he scratched his chin and stared at a photo of a bar. But honestly, he enjoyed the occasional big win when they found and rescued someone, rare as it was. And that right there sparked the slight hint of recognition in his mind. There, in the photograph, was a mage. The photo was taken from behind the band during one of their performances at a local dive bar, out into the crowd, and there in the lower left corner halfway into the crowd was a face he recognised from a couple of other similar case files. He stood out of his chair and shuffled his coat on awkwardly, keeping a grip on the photo and not moving it from his view, memorising every detail of the bastard's face, a sallow and waxy looking man of maybe late thirties. Got you now, you son of a bitch! he thought, the rising excitement of finding a lead growing in his chest. Maybe, just maybe, here was another win for his team.

Additional Notes: Berenice has a bad habit of talking to herself to remind herself of things, resulting in an almost constant stream of low-grade muttering if she's thinking hard. She also does not understand toilets. At all. Or really any sort of personal hygiene not directly related to washing of leavings of meals and keeping her feathers well-groomed, thus her hair is a tangled mess and she does not smell pleasant.

Additional Comments: I would really appreciate collaborating with some people on Berenice's introductory arc, specifically the NPC parents of kids and potentially their calling in of heroes to deal with Berenice if they panic, which I personally think is the best way to intro her? Or if you've got other ideas. I dunno

Zoë "Forge" Lambert

Character you have created: Zoé Lambert
Alias: Кузница (Kuznitsa), Wraith, Forge

Speech Color (Actually say what you're using): Tomato
Character Alignment: Villain
Identity: Secret

Character Personality: Zoë does not give one iota of care about anyone other than herself. Having no close relations, no one she trusts enough to call friend, and no real job or other form of even marginal social contact has left her somewhat askew on what still counts as good or bad company. She's also a loner, preferring to stay in her lair and play video games, doodle, read, or other activities that require other people to participate. Part of this is the isolation her powers force on her, as even with practise she has not gotten full control of them, and tied as they are to her emotional state, her volatile temper makes her more dangerous than it would in a normal person.

She has no regard for property law, and steals whatever she desires, or the cash to get it. She maintains her cover identity only as a front for where she gets the money, and will happily buy illicit goods from whomever has them. While she doesn't take hallucinogenic drugs due to the loss of control of her powers, she is more than happy to do some of the lighter things. Whiskey, however much she might like drinking it, usually results in her having to buy new stuff or move.

Internally, Zoë is lonely, blaming her powers and not her behaviour for driving away everyone she once cared about. She misses her family, but the way they split left her very much blaming them incorrectly. She drives herself further into villainy every day, trying to drown her problems in wealth and booze, and is extremely self-destructive. If she's not stop, she may begin eroding her own rules, which include no killing women or children, no unnecessary harm (though her definition of necessary is different than the norm), and not robbing the poor. She likes to see herself as a "noble" thief, though she's as greedy as any of them. She also enjoys rubbing her getaways in the faces of heroes and the authorities, sometimes putting herself in more danger than she would normally get into even doing the job she's bragging about.

She is intelligent, far brighter than most, and enjoys logic puzzles and challenges to her mind. She's also bright enough to realise the path she's on is not one destined for a long life, but she depressive enough and far enough along to think she's stuck, and the buzz from getting away with things tends to chase away her doubts, at least temporarily. She is also smart enough to realise the advantages her stealth powers give her, and has attempted to keep them as secret as her identity, and has been so far successful at it.

While working and in combat, she tries to maintain the advantage of surprise as long as she can, manipulating civilians or staying invisible until she makes a decisive move, then fading back into obscurity when she can. If she can't, she will go for a blitz strike, creating heat, fire, smoke, and launching intense, focused attacks to stagger her opponent until they either cannot fight back or lose track of her long enough for her to slip away. She doesn't typically want to fight any longer than she absolutely has to, and will only go toe-to-toe if given no other way out. She refuses to purposefully kill, but she is well aware of how dangerous her fire powers are. She is much more comfortable using the threat of them than actually causing damage, but if she's forced to, she will not hesitate to burn those in her way.

Uniform/costume: Zoë wears normal, everyday colours and clothes when she's not working. When she is, her costume involves greys, browns, and muted other colours, varying clothes between jobs so she never has the same look twice in a row. Her body suit is black and grey with ember red seams. While the bodysuit is skintight(because that's what supers wear, right?), there are strategically placed pieces of armour, that both protect vital areas like her kidneys and joints, as well as disturb her body line enough that anyone who can see through her power can't identify her later on. She also wears a mask that covers her cheekbones, chin, eyebrows, forehead and hairline, bride of her nose, and ears, somewhat like a luchador mask. The nature of her powers make it so that she must leave the rest exposed. The body suit itself and all armour bits and made by an inventor she comissioned to be completely fireproof.

In combat, she will slag metal into plates, cool them off, and use them as armour, either keeping them on her or floating just away from her.





Origin Info/Details:

Zoë grew up very well, in a nice country/suburban home outside Orléans, and spent summers at her grandfather's vineyard along with her brother, though a fight about schooling stopped those visits when she was twelve. While she loved both her parents and her grandfather very much, the rift between them was enough to drive her to sullenness, and she began acting out more than most teenagers would, typically with petty crimes and defiance of her parent's authority. Shortly after her fifteenth birthday, she joined Les Chiens Sanglants, a local gang, and within a year had fought with her brother, had a huge row with her parents, and ran away to be with her gang full time.

Her turning sixteen, after a month with the gang, brought with it unexpected changes, her powers awakening full bloom during a fight with another girl who had insinuated she was sleeping her way up the ranks, an accusation both untrue and offensive. Not knowing what was happening, but having some instinctive grasp on her newfound abilities, not everyone was killed in the resulting blaze, but she found herself homeless. However, power called her subconciously, and after a month of practise, she had mastered all but the more subtle aspects of her powers, and swiftly turned it to making herself more comfortable.

With cunning manipulations and several low profile robberies, she amassed a small fortune, and set herself up as a "mercenary villain", handing out her number to select trustworthy individuals and remaining on call for jobs. She has worked several of these, and her front as a legitimate painter with an unknowing agent, along with private investing, covers her profits quite well. Aside from smash-and-grabs and bank robberies, she has done jobs ranging from blackmail and spy-work to smuggling small, high value items and arson. She is building a reputation as a volatile but trustworthy "co-worker", and is careful to avoid any connection to her civilian identity.

Zoë's hobbies include painting, glasswork, and pottery, cello and oboe (her parent's insistence), and video gaming. Despite her easily frustrated nature, she seems to have enough patience for these tasks. She is also fluent in her native French, Russian, and English, knows her way around a computer, is good enough with numbers to invest privately and successfully, and smart enough to cover both of her identities so their "off times" don't coincide enough to arouse suspicion. She is well versed in physics, as her powers required her to have some knowledge of thermodynamics, and she is also knowledgeable in calculus, biology, chemistry, and geology, though she has no formal secondary schooling in these subjects.

She is power hungry, and is actively attempting to learn how to be a successful criminal mastermind, though it has been slow going because of her cautionary attitude. She is willing to take the long road, however, and has set herself up with a third identity, Wraith, in order to manipulate gangs, villains, and the like and try to gain her own territory in her adopted home of Los Angeles. She is careful to only speak Russian or English on jobs, so as to avoid anyone looking for a French girl.

Hero Type: Energy (fire), Psychic, Other(maybe shapeshifter)
Power Level : World
Powers (Be Specific):

Temperature Manipulation: Zoë has extremely adept control over temperature, being able to shift the temperature in areas in the following definition:
-As small in volume as a child to as wide as she wishes;
-Within two hundred metres of her, in line of sight only:
-As fast as her maximum within a minute in a slightly exponential graph as she pours more or pulls out energy into an already energetic situation(putting more heat to heat up air that is already heating up the air around it), or as slowly as she wishes;
-The heating can begin to spread to areas out of her control;
-Temperatures between 50F(10C) to 4800F(2648.9C);
-If concentrating on an object only, she can flash the temperature up to her maximum in less than a second. She CANNOT do this to people, however, and relies on heating their clothing, weapons, armour, or the air around them.

Pyrokinesis: She can form, control, and move in apparent defiance of physics, any fires within her range, able to throw fireballs, put out or enlarge flames, start fires on flammable objects, render things fireproof(with concentration), shot jets of flames from her hands, and even go as high as doing the same with plasma. She has enough control to make shapes and little figures out of the flames, though they are not in any way independent and she has to mentally control all of their movements.

Temperature and Disease Immunity: Zoë is completely immune to all heat and cold based effects, from fire and ice, to ambient temperatures, to lasers, radiation, and the depths of space (though she'd still need proof against pressure and the ability to breathe). When infected with any sort of bacteria, virus, or other disease vector, she can heat her body to the point that the offending organism cannot survive. She also is, oddly, immune to any smoke created with her power.

Alternate Form: If pressed, Zoë can turn her body temperature up to the point where the air around her ignites, or even to the point her own flesh ignites, though this does not damage her. At this point, she is incapable of dropping the temperature around her body fast enough to counter the heat pouring off of her body. She has the capability of pushing this far higher, up to turning into a walking form of plasma, but she is too scared of it to try. With her minor telekinesis, this allows her to fly, though not at any spectacular speeds, 60mph at most

Minor Telekinesis: Anything Zoë is controlling the temperature of, she can also move about with her mind, either keeping it hovering around her, or give it enough thrust to launch somewhat like a short toss. She can do this with anything weighing up to 600lbs(272kg), and the lighter the object, the more force she can throw it with.

Minor Telepathic Imagery: Zoë has the ability to project, through broad range telepathy, the basis for any given type of person or profession she wants. So, she can project herself as a CEO who simply belong in the board meeting, the police officer who belongs at the crime scene, or the homeless person who no one pays attention to. She CANNOT take on any specific image or disguise, as this power relies more on the perceptions of others than her own. Everyone sees somewhat different things, depending on what they might believe, but on normal people it is fairly foolproof. Anyone with psychic powers is completely unaffected. People actively looking for her, who know what she looks like, have a chance of shaking this off. This obviously does not have any effect on cameras. She can project on a crowd seemingly without limit, as it subverts the viewer's perception, so there isn't much, if any, energy expenditure on her part, and while she has this going, she doesn't have to concentrate beyond maintaining what type of person she wishes to portray. This does include clothing.

Phasing and Invisibility: Zoë has the ability to shift herself in to a form that allows her to move through solid objects as easily as she would air, though in a slower way than usually. She is also invisible to the naked eye when doing this. People she moves through only feel slightly cold and hot at the same time, noticeably, though the source is indistinguishable. She cannot bring people into this form with her, but small objects (such as knives, bundles of cash, hand grenades, etc) can be in her pockets. No object she brings with her will function in this state (cameras will not take picture, guns will not fire, etc). Shifting back and forth can only be done with her whole body, not parts. When she shifts back, matter where she would be is shunted away until there is space for her. If she lets go of an object while "phased out", it returns to it's normal state after thirty seconds, not before, upon leaving her person. While phased, she can see everything in a blurred, colourless way, with very reduced depth perception, but other things trying to stay invisible cannot hide from her in this state.

Enhanced Physicality: Along with her major power suite, Zoë also enjoys enhanced agility, strength, reflexes, and speed, and although not enough to classify her as a powerhouse in those categories, she is powerful enough to stand her ground in a fist fight with some of the more physical heroes, and can easily trounce unprepared normal humans.

Attributes:

Height: 5'7"
Weight: 116
Strength Level: Can lift around a thousand pounds.
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: 30 mph on the ground, 60mph flying/ 60mph level reactions.
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 2x normal
Agility: 5x normal
Intelligence: Genius
Fighting Skill: Untrained

Resources: Large: Aside from a very comfortable savings account in a Swiss Bank, she has several tens of thousands of dollars in cash stashed away, stolen goods worth a few grand in and of themselves, and invested assets that bring her close to a total of one million.

Weaknesses:
-While she is capable of melting knives, and is terrifying if she gets riled up, Zoë has no super power directly related to toughness, and if caught unawares, a single bullet does as much damage to her as to anyone else.

-As stated above, any psychic character can see through her telepathic projections

-While she may be immune to heat and cold, and can burn gases and some poisons out of her system, non-temperature poisons or heat-activated ones are still just as effective. Electricity, as well, maintains its effects, though it won't burn her so much as scramble her nerves, or, if powerful enough, give her seizures or possibly kill her outright.

-She is emotionally unstable, and can be driven over certain edges. Anyone with access to her background and sensitive details could easily push her and manipulate her.

-It is technically possible, if one could find a way to stop her powers from working, to completely disable all of them, excepting that her immunity to temperatures would carry through as a protection against her own powers. Done right, this could trap her in a block of steel.

-She still needs to breathe, eat, sleep, etc, just like normal people.

-While she is immune to smoke inhalation damage itself, anything toxic from burning materials can still harm her.

-Heat from radioactive materials may not burn her, but she is still vulnerable to all the other horrifying side effects from them.

Supporting Characters:
There are plenty of FBI and Interpol agents trying to find her, though not with much luck.
Her estranged family, living in Orléans:
-Mother: Amélie Lambert (43), works at La Scène du Meroubre as a manager
-Father: Hugo Lambert (44), works as a delivery driver.
-Older Brother: Théo (24), an accountant at a law firm in Paris.
-Younger Sister: Émile (18), just starting college, but secretly also has ice powers in almost the reverse of her sister's fire powers
-Maternal Grandfather: Gaspar Moreau (67), owns a small vineyard outside Marseilles

Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Yarr

Darya "Tiamat" Kamaliazad

Character you have created: Darya Anat Kamaliazad
Alias: Tiamat
Speech Color: Aquamarine (7FFFD4)
Character Alignment: Hero
Identity: Secret

Character Personality: Darya is a sweet girl, caring and loving of all humans regardless of their faults, though she has a core of hatred for those who inflict needless suffering on their fellow humans and defenseless creatures of the world. Being raised with her grandmother, she grew up believing that magic was still real, and while she has not encountered it yet, she will be delighted to know that her grandmother was correct. She enjoys music and dancing, loves cooking, and is all in all the mother of the multitude of friends she has. Despite how exhausting this is, she would never dream of letting them down.

Her flavour of love, however, is a tough one. She is more than willing to call others out on their stupidity, though out of care for them instead of mocking. She is deeply spiritual, though not necessarily religious. The Islamic mosque she attends in her hometown is more of a way to stay social in her college career rather than a desire to attain Heaven, and she has deeply seated concerns about most religions.

Uniform/costume: She's working on one, but so far, she has not gotten a good design yet, and is relying on a ski mask and baggy clothes.

Origin Info/Details: Darya was born to a caring family who had recently fled the violence and foolishness of their home in Iran, and were making do as they could in America. They settled in New York at first, where Darya was born, but economics forced them further away, until they finally settled in Albuquerque, New Mexico. There is where Darya and her younger brother grew up. Her father and mother were victims of racially motivated hate crimes when she was thirteen, but thankfully, her family had been steadily filtering over, and several uncles and aunts were around to help her grandmother.

Darya's grandmother always had the air of a mystic, and she raised her grandchildren on stories of the old country, of Persia, of great kings and djinn, and other fantasies. She always held that the family was descended from the Sassanid dynasty, though no proof was ever forthcoming and no one believes it any more than they do her other fairy tales. However, Darya believes at least that magic exists, and that her grandmother has seen it, and her beliefs were further driven home when she developed her powers at age nineteen.

Walking to work at her uncle Yousef's coffee bar one day, the periodic heavy rains of Albuquerque came down hard and heavy while Darya was completely unprepared. She made a mad dash down an alley, attempting to find cover, only to find to her extreme surprise that she was still completely dry, despite water pouring from the sky in buckets. She swept her arms a few times and watched in wonder as the standing water on the ground and that still falling responded to her motions as if she was in that one Nickelodeon cartoon.

She hid her newfound abilities for a few weeks, but finally, guilt and excitement drove her to tell her uncle where she was disappearing to on her breaks, and why. He was relieved, momentarily, to find she wasn't off having sex or smoking drugs, but relief swiftly turned to abject horror as he realised the implications of what had occurred. A family meeting was called, and various comments and demands were made before Darya's grandmother, matriarch and undisputed authority in the family, ordered Darya to decide for herself. Darya, being who she is, decided to balance family and duty and hero-work.

Currently, Darya serves as one of a very limited number of heroes in the southwest, most of whom belong to the United Southwestern Hero Association. They have been actively trying to recruit Tiamat, but the family, even Fatemeh, are concerned about fulltime heroing and what effects that might have on Darya's future. The Hounds attacks on other metas, however, has driven all the fear out of the whole clan; as much as anyone else, they see the same lunacy that threatens their homeland, and no member of the family would dare argue that they nee to be stopped. And so Darya has been thrust onto the world stage, hesitant but ready to do her part.

Hero Type: Elemental: Water
Power Level: World

Powers:

Hydrokinesis: By far the most impressive of Darya's abilities is direct control of water. She is not limited by volume, and can draw it directly out of the air or nearby standing bodies and move it at the speed of thought. Water, being what it is, has an impressive display of forms, and she is practised in transporting herself, making rain, putting out fires, and forming blades. If she were to move to a more humid area, she would have much more to work with, and on the coast, she is capable of making tsunamis and other extremely impressive/destructive displays.

Other Liquids: Darya has not tried to do this before, but her abilities are not limited to water alone, and anything which is a liquid, she can manipulate. Terrifyingly, this includes such things as powerful acids, and even the blood inside living creatures. Semisolids are liquid enough to fall under this control, anything up to and including oobleck.

Ice and other solids: Given enough training, Darya could actually play with other objects as well. She simply needs to learn how to convert them to their liquid form. Water ice being the foremost of those, but as long as it contains water at all, she can get it to it's liquid form, and then manipulate it as normal.

Atomic Manipulation and Fine Control: As evidenced by her ability(theoretical for now) to convert solids to liquids, Darya can employ vast amounts of impossibly fine-tuned control over liquids. At the top of her form, she could conceivably control only a few molecules to move, should she wish to. This particular capability comes with the ability to think on that level, with the reaction speed required for such manipulations.

Enhanced body: The mutation that caused Narya's powers has also enhanced her phsyical body, increasing her speed, strength.

**Note**: Darya is aware of her control over water, though not about its lack of limitations, and is not aware of her control over other liquids or her ability to do much with solids and semisolids except that she has played with ice and steam. She is not at all aware of her molecular control, and is only vaguely aware of how much her body has adapted to her power.

Skills:
Darya is well versed in her native languages, Farsi and English, and passable with Middle Persian (her grandmother insisted).

She is well trained by her uncles in weapons handling for modern small arms such as pistols and shotguns, knives, and hand to hand combat forms (Krav Maga and Aikido).

She is an extremely good cook, especially with Mediterranean dishes but can turn pretty much anything that is food into amazing dishes, if a bit unorthodox.

She is good at playing doumbek, oud, qanoun, and Moroccan oboe, though none at any sort of professional level. She's also a fair turn-of-the-hips at belly dancing, even if she's a bit too skinny for it.

She has some scholarly interest in philosophy, ethics, poetry, biology, chemistry, and physics, but has not actively pursued any of these.

Attributes (Select one at each category):

Height: 5'2" (160 cm)
Weight: 110 lbs
Strength Level: ~1 ton range
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Normal speed/~3x normal reactions
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 3 hours
Agility: 5x normal
Intelligence: Average
Fighting Skill: Expert

Resources: Not a lot. Average college student levels.

Weaknesses:

The obvious one is that she can only manipulate things in a liquid state, and while she can change some of those, solid objects like steel are impossible for her to convert to liquid, as they contain no water, and thus she cannot control them.

Sand, is, oddly, one of her worst weaknesses, both because of its ability to absorb water and because, whatever mysterious thing causes her powers also will severely weaken or even stop working entirely should she get more than a few hundred grains of it in contact with her skin. Currently, she has not given this knowledge to anyone.

While a bit faster and tougher than most people, Narya is proof against no bullet, blade, or even fist, and takes damage as normal.

Supporting Characters:
Darya has a huge clan she comes from:
Uncles, Aunts, and Cousins

-Ahmad (43) and Farrah (41)(deceased), and their four children
-Hossein (42) and Kiana (41), with three children
-Ramin (40) and Goli (41), with five children
-Yousef (37) and Reyhan (35), with two children
-Zurvan (35) and Sajad (36), with two adopted children
-Farrokh (32) and Anouseh (35), with two children
-Basir (31), unmarried

Parents

Giv (39) and Zarine (38), both deceased nine years ago.

Their Children

Leila (23), and her husband Martin (25), no children, though Leila is pregnant
Darya (22)
Massoud (18)
Maryam (15)

Grandparents

Fatemeh (63), and Rostam (64)(deceased twenty years ago)
Roya (67) and Massoud (69), both deceased

In addition, Darya has worked alongside the USHA on occasion, whose member include:

Doc Holliday: Fully committed to a cowboy aesthetic, this idealistic young man treats everyone like a gentleman would. He has healing powers and unerring aim with firearms.

Thunderbird: Native American shaman from the Apache. Concerned mostly with environmental threats. Has weather control powers and supersonic flight.

Broadway: Named that way because this Vegas-based hero couldn't really call herself 'Strip'. Light based powers, mostly flashy and not lasers and whatnot.

Rocky: Modelling himself after the boxer and the mountains, this rough and tumble hero is a veteran boxer, “old as the hills”, and has earth and tectonic powers in addition to being super strong and super tough.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)

--15:30 local time
--Lost Haven Outskirts

Three hundred damn miles, and Nicole had finally made it to Lost Haven, the city she planned to make her new home, and hopefully where her nightmares would cease. Any normal person would probably toss down their bag and pass out in the first comfortable spot they could find, but the fifteen year old didn't even remember the last time she slept, or even felt tired. "Or hungry," she thought idly as she walked past a diner in the suburban style area on the west side of what she vaguely recalled being named Carver. For a moment she considered trying to beg some food off of the people inside, just for something to taste, but she swiftly shrugged it off and continued making her way towards the centre of the city.

As she went, things became more and more like back home in the Kitchen, and her mind started recalling that day a month ago. She shook her head, trying to clear her brain. Time enough for recollection and introspection later, for now she had to find out where the hell in this city she could look up a superhero. Or a scientist. Hell, anyone who could tell her how to fix this would be good, though after the journey here she wasn't precisely sure any more whether that was still her goal. After watching Icon and the rest stop the Pax Metahumana on the news, on the radio, and from the street itself, she knew she had to get here, but an ingrained sense of distrust for authority figures had stopped her from going to the shelters and asking for help. After all, she wasn't going supernova or slinging lightning bolts accidentally or turned into some animal person. She was just..."Damn, after two months and I still don't know how to explain this." All she really knew was that she seemed to be like someone out of the comic books.

Thinking about her condition, coupled with the noise of the afternoon street traffic and the smells of the city wafting along with her meandering path finally tore down her internal defences and dropped her mind back into introspection mode. The car driving past back-fired noisily and she wavered on her feet and slumped against the warm brick wall of an alley entrance and slid down into a sitting position, no longer really controlling her body as her mind completely flashed back to that fateful day three months ago.

It was getting dark, street lights just now flickering to life, as she struggled with the flimsy plastic bags and made her way home. Mentally, she ticked off her grocery list in case she forgot anything, though she had spent nearly an hour double checking herself anyway. Dad was probably going to be a little miffed it had taken her this long. Being distracted by this checklist meant she missed the shouting until she rounded the corner of her block and came full into view of the fight.

Ten guys on one side, maybe twelve on the other, spread out in two opposing lines, showing colours she knew to stay away from. They occupied the whole damn street, and were between her and her building. Other bystanders wee already scattering as the first shots rang out, and she ducked behind the dumpster next to her, clutching at the food in her arms and hoping it would end quickly. The scent of fermenting garbage did nothing to make her more comfortable. Thankfully the gun shots did cease fairly quickly, but when she realised she was clenching her eyes shut and opened them, it was not to see a few bodies and an empty street. A sort of green, hazy light filled the street, and thins were happening that nearly broke her brain right then and there.

One of the fighters had begun sprouting awful looking set of bug arms, one was starting to crackle with electricity. Several others were doing even more weird stuff. Looking down at her hands, she realised her vision had gone blurry, and thought that maybe she had been drugged. And then her mind had gone, and she spent the next twelve centuries or eighteen seconds or three galactic ages or a single heartbeat seeing everything that had ever happened, was happening, or was going to happen. And as suddenly as it had started, her vast, expanded consciousness collapsed back into itself, coming a second time very close to completely destroying her mind. She felt queasy, and as her vision cleared, she looked up to see some guy flying at her from across the street, flaring like a firework. And everything exploded.

Nicole came back to the present shaking uncontrollably under her clothes, still slumped against the wall and pale in the face. Several people were staring from across the street, and she knew she must look like a junkie or something. She struggled to her feet, snatched up the duffel bag she carried her few meagre belongings in, and set off as fast as she could without looking like a freak back towards down town. "Stupid stupid stupid," she thought at herself angrily. "Way to keep a low profile, dumbass." Not that she could control it. Her mind had been torturing her all the way across the country, and it didn't look like it was going to let up any time soon. "Just gotta keep moving."

Not having a cell phone was costing her, though. With no GPS, and having left the interstate with its helpful signs pointing the way, she had no idea where she was going. A sense of purpose had driven her from the funeral all the way here, and paranoia grounded in being a rebellious and underage girl out by herself in the world had kept her away from any sort of police or anything else. Some helpful asshole was bound to peg her as a runaway and take her in if she wasn't careful, and though she had ditched her ID and everything else that could identify her except the family photo tucked into her vest, she knew that somehow her luck would run out soon enough. She had to reach someone that could help her before then.

--19:10
--Lost Haven Interior, between Little Sicily and Chinatown

With evening closing in rapidly, Nicole made her way across the bridge from Carver into Olympia warily. She flinched for cover every time she saw a police cruiser, trying to both stay out of sight and not look suspicious at the same time, though however weird she must look doing so, she must have pulled it off because none of them bothered stopping. Stepping off of the walkway and onto the normal streets again, she glanced up and down, noting a number of places that marked this as some sort of Italian district, though she had no idea where the borders of it might be. All she really knew for the moment was that she was going to have to find a place to bunker down before a more enterprising peace officer decided to investigate the lost looking teen wandering around as night wore on. In fact, noting a somewhat more marked police presence in the area than she was used to seeing on normal streets, she flipped a mental coin and pressed on towards what she figured was south, moving through alleyways and trying to avoid knots of people.

“When did it get dark,” she thought, looking around as she climbed a ladder behind what smelled like a Chinese restaurant. Getting to the top, she saw only vent ducts and a shoddy looking air conditioning unit, which would probably make for a decent back rest while she slept. She was just about to mount the top of the ladder and poke around on the roof when the sound of shattering glass caught her attention. As swiftly and quietly as she could, she moved to the front of the building behind a sign for the restaurant and looked down.

Several men in dark clothes stood around, arguing in harsh whispers in some foreign language

<Is this going to take for-fucking-ever, man?>

<I don't know, shit for brains, the last one took maybe five minutes.>

<Yeah, well, I don't like being this close to the police line.>

<Hey, shut the hell up for twenty seconds, morons.>

The last phrase had been said by a really beefy looking guy off to one side. Unlike the rest, he didn't have a gun. All of them looked Asian, and she could swear they were speaking Japanese or Chinese, but she didn't know any foreign languages at all. Not that it mattered. “Who robs a friggin' restaurant,” she asked herself under her breath. Another guy climbed out of the window, this one covered in tattoos underneath his cheap suit.

<All done in there. Let's get the fuck out of->

Nicole's world went loud and white for a brief moment, and she felt herself flying through the air without any sense of direction before hitting the ground. As her eyes adjusted to the new light conditions, she noticed that she was now lying in the street, covered in brick dust, and the roar of flames and falling debris filled her head. She tried fighting it for a second, but her mind flickered back to memories again.

She woke up buried under a layer of broken bricks, water pouring down to clog her nostrils from a broken pipe somewhere up above her, though she was upside down. Someone nearby was screaming, though she couldn't tell if it was from panic or pain and she was too disoriented to sort it out. She shifted and a brick fell away from her face, revealing a street covered in rubble and bodies. Even upside down, she recognised Miss Tuttle, broken and bloody, lying twenty feet away, her eighty-three year old eyes staring sightlessly into the sky. Which meant she was in the corner of her own building. Panic overtook her and she struggled out of her awkward position, chunks of apartment falling around her, and she slid down a cascade of ruined lives to rest on another body, covered in gang colours and blood.

Distant sounds of fighting and panicked mobs reached her ears, and distantly in her mind she recognized that the green haze had gone away, leaving everything much darker than it had been before she had lost consciousness. She had no idea how long it had been, and everything was blurry. Painstakingly slowly, she turned her head, dreading what she knew she was going to see.

Her apartment, where she had been born and raised for fifteen years, was a smoking crater in the side of the building. Apartment 212, just below hers, was a pile of rubble. The floor of Miss Tuttle's apartment had collapsed into hers, the oven from the old lady's kitchen dangling from what was probably an open and leaking gas line. And there, sticking out of the ruined wall of her room, was her older sister Abby's arm, recognisable only because of the bangle bracelet Nicole had given her just two months ago for her birthday. Nicole's vision went red with rage.

Coming back to the present, she heard the jabber of the foreigners again. She shook her head and pushed herself off of her face. Still nothing hurt, just like always. Looking beneath and behind her, there was a clear trail from where she had slid through broken building chunks that had, presumably, come with her as the restaurant exploded. There was broken glass everywhere from the sign she had been hiding behind. Just next to her was the tattooed guy, who was also getting up, though he looked considerably worse for wear and probably had a broken leg from the way he was moving. A word clicked into Nicole's brain, which she uttered out loud without thinking, venom dripping from every syllable as rage consumed her mind. “Yakuza.”

The guy looked up and sneered at her. “The fuck you talking about, little kwailo biaozi?” He spat blood on the ground in front of him and struggled to his knees, wincing from some internal injury. He held up his jacket, revealing a green silk shirt. “Yu zhizhu and very much better than those Japanese dogs.”

Nicole slammed her fist into the ground and nearly threw herself to her feet. Her head felt fuzzy. She knew she was baring her teeth. “Japanese or you jee joo or whatever you are. I'm gonna beat the piss out of you for that.” She jabbed her finger at the blown apart structure to her right, lit now only by flickering flames. The man laughed and then immediately coughed out a wad of bloody phlegm, bent over double by pain. “Haaaaa. What're you goin to do, huh?” He raised his head to grin at her again, only for his face to meet her fist coming the other direction at high speed, sending his badly balanced form back to the ground.

Nicole was not heavy. Nor was she a trained fighter. All she had going for her in any fight had been an Irish temper and moxy. But now, she didn't have to worry about breaking her fingers or bruising herself, and with her mind flooded with pure adrenaline and fury, she didn't even spare a thought for what might happen. As soon as her fist carried through with the first hit, she pulled it back and slammed it into the side of the guy's head. This repeated for several strikes before something slammed into her side and carried her away from the man. She vaguely recognised it as a really big arm in a torn suit before her vision jerked. Her brain found an answer as a fist slammed into her gut, though she only felt a slight pressure from the blow. “The big guy is hitting me. And he tackled me.” Furious both at the interruption and the presence of another bomber, she began flailing wildly with both arms, trying to land any sort of damage on the bastard. In return, he grabbed her by the neck with one meaty fist and slammed her down onto the pavement. Even as he did so, her left foot swung up and caught his knee. Her soccer training had given her a kick like a mule, and he buckled and backed up, grimacing. She got up, took up what she thought might look like a serious fighting pose, and grinned at him while he favoured one leg and spat at her. “Looks like a fun night out now,” she thought, and went in swinging.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)

Berenice had not been happy to spot the adults approaching, which had been just ahead of Amy owing to her vantage point a bit higher up. Her talons had gripped tight enough to start prying splinters out of the fence when the woman screamed, and the approach of even more adults did her mental state no favours. Having only met one adult human in her entire three weeks of existence and come to the conclusion that he had been trying to steal her kill, she was not at all pleased to see more food-thieves. Her brain had also not yet made the connection that the children and the adults were the same species, and, realising that there might be a threat, she hopped around the kids, who were just starting to move forward with placating gestures and shouts, landing between them and the adults. While not necessarily being aggressive yet, she was hopping side to side, head snapping to look at both pairs of humans in rapid succession. Hey eyes were wide, and while they were sized for her head, they were slightly wider than a normal persons, and they were coloured just like an eagles Currently, those eyes had pupils that were very dilated.

With Owen's parents occupied with some strange box that the male was saying things into near his face, the female hanging from his arm and staring at her but not making a move towards the children, Berenice turned to the strangers, glaring at them and bobbing slightly. “You stay away, egg-thief,” she snarled at David, baring her predator's teeth in what she hoped was an intimidating way. “Not care your name Dah-vid. Stay away from the friends!”

Amy moved up behind her, dodging deftly around the half-beating wings and tried to calm down the harpy. “Look, Berry! Hes not trying to hurt anyone. Please listen!'' She gave a pleading look to the man, saying directly to him, “Look, Mister David, she's really not dangerous, she doesn't know any better. She's only been around a few weeks and we don't know where she came from, but she's been nothing but nice to us.” Glancing behind her, she saw Owen over by his parents, trying to calm them down with little success. They had obviously called the police. Amy turned back to the stranger with panic in her eyes.

“The police aren't going to understand! They'll just shoot her or carve her up or something! Please you have to get her out of here!” Turning back to Berenice, who was showing more confusion than anything else, she cupped the harpy's face in her hands and got her to look the girl in the eye. “Berry, you have to get out of here. If you go with the man he can keep us in contact, okay? But men are coming who won't want to talk, they'll just think you're bad and they'll take you away!”

The others were scattering, trying to create distractions so that they had enough time to get their friend out of the area, but Berenice was obviously not happy. She had never seen her friends worried like this, nor did she really have any sense of danger. “Norra danger, Ah-mee. Norra wanna go, wanna stay and play more.” She shot a venomous glare at David and the other man. “Without egg-thiefs.” Amy rolled her eyes exasperatedly and shook her head. “We'll play again another time, okay? But if you don't leave now we'll never get to play again.” That sank in enough to shake Berenice, and she hopped slightly closer to David, eyeing him warily. “Okay, Ah-mee. I will go with Dah-vid-thief, but if he try things funny, I will rip him!” She flexed a talon into the dirt she stood on, trying to give her words weight.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)

Character you have created: Nicole MacNamara
Alias: Walker
Speech Color (Actually say what you're using): Azure F0FFFF
Character Alignment: Walking the Line
Identity: Secret, trying to keep it that way

(The piercings wouldn't be there, as the holes can't exist. Otherwise good representation)

Character Personality:
Nicole is a scrapper, born and bred in the rough neighbourhoods of Hell's Kitchen to a poor family of workers. She knows life is tough, sometimes overwhelmingly so, but she battles on because really, what other choice do you have? She tries to maintain a positive attitude and see the good in the world, but the past three months have not been kind to her, and it's starting to wear pretty hard. It doesn't help that her hormones are raging about, and not showing any signs of cutting back soon.
There are many things that aggravate Nicole, and those fluctuate day to day. But several things drive her at this point. She thirsts, desires like nothing else she's known before, to satisfy her sense of justice. She knows gangs are horrible, and senseless violence bad, but otherwise her sense of justice is entirely based out of what her working-class father managed to teach her, mainly that 'hard work's rewarded, and good prevails'. She is somewhat arbitrary in what she believes might be just or not, and, for example, will happily smash a man in the face for shoplifting. In short, her responses will most likely be physically violent, and sometimes not proportional.
She has found over the last couple of months that she generally enjoys fighting, which is probably not going to endear her to her idol. Also on her list of not-so-heroic traits: She has no problems stealing to live, though not from the poor. Sneaking her way into places, killing those she thinks deserve it, fighting with the police if they try and take her in; None of this is beyond her. She will do anything to achieve her goals.

Uniform/costume:

My Hider

Jacket:

Pants:

Boots:

Add a black bandana across her lower face, blackened goggles, and a baseball cap.

Obviously, once she starts heroing, this should change, but this is all she can get for a disguise for now.

Origin Info/Details: Nicole grew up the youngest of three girls born to a poor electrician and his wife in Hell's Kitchen. She had, as far as she could tell, everything she wanted from life, even if she didn't necessarily eat every night and never got to see parks. But she was happy, and tha was important. She did...okay in school, though she was neither exceptional nor all that motivated. Early on, she got the bug to read her older sisters comics books, and when her mom taught her about Lady Liberty, she was fascinated. She grew up thinking that the only thing she wanted to do was to be a superhero. She got her wish in the most horrific way she could imagine.
She missed the news broadcasts warning that Pax MetaHumana was coming, and Nicole was busy bringing groceries back to her house when she had to take cover from a gang fight that broke out nearly on her tenement building's front step. As she crouched, waiting for everything to calm down at least long enough for her to get inside, the crackling green energy washed over her street, and for just a moment, she knew everything. Just as quickly, that knowledge and her memory of it was gone, and she was left feeling slightly nauseous. Trying to figure out what was going on, she peeked up over the dumpster she had taken cover behind. Which was when the street exploded.
Later, she pieced together what had happened. Apparently, one of the combatants near her had gained the ability to explode forward and detonate like a rocket, somehow without taking damage. One of the opposing folks had developed lightning powers, and a host of minor physical abilities may have occurred on both sides. All Nicole knew at the time was that the dumpster had launched into her in a cloud of flying debris, launching her through the brick wall behind her, and everything went dark as a corner of the building collapsed onto her.
Her parents were both killed in the building's collapse, and one of her sisters was killed by fighting in the streets during the mass panic that occurred. When she woke up and found out what happened, Nicole nearly lost her mind then and there. But the news broadcasts in the area included mentions of the heroes fighting to stop what had killed her family, and somewhere deep down, her mind latched on to the hero Icon as the one who stopped it from happening to any further cities, despite the reality of it being a whole confederation of heroes. She spent several days learning what she could about him, and then, grabbing some gear to keep herself hidden so she didn't get taken in as a runaway, she began the long trek to Lost Haven. She aims to become his apprentice, or at least learn how to hero, and stop things like the Pax Metahumana event from ever destroying another family. Since she is underage, she has had to make her way to the city on foot

Hero Type (Select one): Brick

Power Level (Select one below): Street
Powers (Be Specific):

Set Adrift: Nicole is caught outside of time, temporally unset. Her position in time varies greatly, so much so that, using the "Trousers of Time" or branching dimensions explanation of Multiverse Theory, she exists as the same person in all possible universes, though not physically, because all of those incarnations of her exists at the same point in time, the present. Mentally and spiritually, she is normal, but anything that attempts to affect her physically would have to affect her for all of time, all at once.
Effectively, she is conventionally invulnerable. Kinetic impacts, energy, poisons; nothing can affect her for her entire existence at the moment it happens, and thus is negated entirely, not even capable of breaking the surface of her skin. This also means nothing can change her body from the point she was temporally destabilised. She cannot starve, cannot suffocate, and will not age. Her muscles cannot be damaged, so she enjoys a slight increase of strength over average humans, and can lift more than she should be able to because she doesn't have to fear bone breakage or soft tissue rupture.
Oddly, this does not affect her memory like it logically should, and neural pathways can still form, though only in her brain(see below about muscle memory). She is also slowly losing any sort of fear, due to her complete inability to encounter things that cause her pain. That could change, given what she might face off against later.

Attributes (Select one at each category):

Height: 5'4”
Weight: 127 lbs
Strength Level: Above Human, but not normal meta levels
(Her only augment to strength is not suffering muscle,tendon, or bone damage)
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Human
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: Effectively limitless
Agility: Normal human
Intelligence: Average
Fighting Skill: Untrained

Resources: Minimal
Weaknesses:

She does not age. She is fifteen. While she might enjoy immortality for a little bit, she will never be physically an adult. She will never be taken seriously as an adult. And she is permanently in the final stages of puberty, unable to ever escape the ravages of hormonal fluctuations.
Anything that ignores one's temporal position can affect her as per normal. This means she is susceptible to magical enchantment, psionics, having her soul ripped out, and other things like that. Directly damaging magic, such as hurling a fireball at her, however, still has no effect. Theoretically,if one could do enough damage to affect her for all of time, one could wear down her physical defenses and damage her, but in practise this would be almost impossible except for extremely powerful speedsters.
She isn't all that bright, and as a fifteen year old is convinced that she knows exactly how the world works, despite any evidence that other people might know more than her(with the exception of Icon). While that might change a little over time, it will never completely go away.
Despite being undamageable, she is still subject to all of the other normal physics a one hundred and twenty-pound girl might face. She can be buried in rubble and rendered immobile, launched into space to adrift forever, sunk to the bottom of the ocean, tied up, etc. Her natural strength can only go so far.
Speaking of strength, her unchanging body comes with a curse. She was somewhat strong for her age due to some sports training, but she while she will never suffer muscle degradation, she will never gain muscle mass, either. No matter how much she might need out of her muscles, they will never grow any stronger. She will never get any more flexible, never get any faster, never gain muscle memory for martial training.
Being undamageable has some psychological effects, as well. Nicole is completely reckless, having no concern at all for tactics, delicate situations, or really anything beyond completing her task. She also has a tendency to forget what might hurt or kill normal people.
If anything should infect her somehow, while she would be immune to ill effects, she is the perfect carrier for disease. And no known medical test can possibly work on her, returning nothing but errors or blank screens, needles unable to puncture her skin, etc. Though she can produce saliva, so that's something.
She has no sense of internal timing anymore, saving for those reflexes needed for combat. So while she can time and dodge a punch if she needed to, she is constantly late, having no idea what time it might be even from moment to moment. This effect of her displacement also causes her vision to be slightly blurred in a way no corrective lenses can correct, as her eyes see everything both slightly ahead and behind of its actual position in the present.

Supporting Characters (Does your character have a significant other? A mother? Friend? Who are they, what do they have to do with your character?): Her sister Alice is missing and presumed dead. Everyone else is dead, and as she is also presumed dead, no one is looking for her at the moment.

Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Think I got it down, now.

Edited to drop her strength.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)

As had been her habit from the beginning, Berenice had woken today with the rising of the sun. Blinking sleep from her eyes and stretching her arms to their full extent, she stared around her little nest. The blown out remains of the small cabin had given her plenty of materials to work with, even a few bits of wooden walls left intact, so she had scavenged a few tarpaulins from the area and stretched them, lean-to fashion, from an L-bend in the remaining structure, forming a covered area of perhaps ten feet across and fifteen long. Inside this she had built a real bird's sort of nest, a drift of twigs carefully assorted and woven into a basket shape, lined with stolen sheets from clotheslines and bits of other soft materials to form a surprisingly comfy bed. Her body shape did not lend itself to lying stretched out as humans did, so she slept much like her avian cousins, in almost a squat, and was content with her arrangements.

The nest faced out into the woods to the north-east, towards Lost Haven, a name she had learned in the past few days. The corner of the wall functioned much as it had been designed to, despite lacking the top third of itself, and blocked the winds off of the Atlantic without taking them directly. On the lee side, the charred wooden flooring was mostly still covered in rubble, though the area immediately outside of the nest had been inexpertly cleared. Fishing line had been strung in several spots between prominences of shattered wood, and from these hung a dizzying array of objects, anything from coins and gum wrappers to small toys, brightly coloured pebbles, a bottle cork, several pieces of broken glass, and most confusingly for human viewers, a carefully folded green napkin.

Not that this location saw any human traffic, even when the cabin had still been whole, a fact that the previous occupant had enjoyed immensely before the accident that had blown him, his laboratory, and most of his reagents out into the water, for the cabin sat on the edge of a short sea cliff, a rocky uplift of the shore that within even a few hundred years might break off into the sea. Even now, the approach up to the place was full of spots where loose or jagged rock made footing treacherous, evidence that the promontory was slowly being pulled into the ocean below. Even the grass had ceased growing except in tufts this far out, reducing the likelihood that someone might want to hike out to it.

The mage who created Berenice had certainly never questioned why anyone had built a house this far out and away from civilisation, taking it as a boon that it existed at all. Berenice questioned it even less, as with no frame of reference for what might have been normal, she had no reason to assume anything was odd.

Later on that summer morning saw Berenice take flight for her first hunting trip of the day, hopping up onto her little wall and then spreading her golden brown wings out and diving off towards the water, only to pull up and wheel about towards the woods. Her approach, as always, caused the nearby seabirds to scatter, and it took almost an hour for her to spot a pair of oblivious squirrels sitting on an exposed branch. Thankfully for her grumbling stomach, they remained oblivious for the remainder of their very short lifespans, and she brought their bodies back to her nest to feast upon. Having only been alive for a few weeks as an adult, she had accumulated an astonishingly large pile of bones in her little scrap pile on the opposite side of the house. After having eaten, and remembering watching her little human friends carefully put their food remains into bins, she eyed the pile. Several bones with pleasing structures(a small dog pelvis, seven rabbit femurs, and the skull of a wood pigeon) were plucked from the scraps, having been picked clean by the luckiest ant colony in the area, and tied up onto the lines with the rest of her baubles. Having extracted what she wished, she examined the rest of the scraps, trying to figure out where she was going to get a bin that she could carry back.

Scouting for such an object took up a good portion of the day, and by the time of her afternoon meal (an unfortunate stray cat), she had concluded that the task was virtually impossible. She decided to consult with her experts on matters of human things, and made her way to the park overlooking the beach in West Lost Haven. The children who knew her were named Amy, Robbie, Ted, Owen, and Laura, and they had not seen their strange friend for several days, making them somewhat anxious that something had happened to her. It was these five that had taught her much in the past few weeks, including clothing herself, picking up, the necessity of keeping one's house neat, how to play hide and seek, why school was important, and so on. They had yet to broach the subject of why she was odd while they were normal, in part because they weren't exactly sure themselves, though more because the local news was always filled with fantastic stories of spectacularly strange things. And since demon invasions marked significantly higher on the list of Things That Worried the Parents than a bird lady, they simply assumed that she knew what she was about, despite her clear lack of domestication.

As she braked her wings and landed to perch on the safety railing, gripping the steel bars with her powerful talons, the five happened to be the only children at the park, unburdened by the presence of adults thanks to the proximity of their houses. They ran up cheering as she settled herself in her customary pose, the corners of her wings draping across the points of her shoulders to enclose her body. She grinned at them and said, “Krrrak! How are the young on this day?”

The kids halted a polite distance from their friend. Despite their best efforts, Berenice had yet to master the art of bathing to a point of smelling at all tolerable, though she managed to keep herself free of blood or gore sticking to her. She still, however, smelled powerfully of bird and unwashed human skin, so they tried not to get too close. Amy waved at her, the red-headed ten year old de-facto leader of the group by virtue of force of will. She spoke up, saying, “We're okay, birdbrain. Where have you been? We were worried you got nabbed by the police!”

Berenice shook her head. “No, no police. Trying to clean house like you say to. Very difficult. Much to be done. Need a bin.” She glanced across their faces and singled out the tow-headed Owen. “Ow-win, where to get bin like that?” She gestured towards the garbage cans near the entrance of the play area. Owen glanced back to it, then turned back and shrugged. “I dunno, Berry. I think the city must put 'em there, but I don't know how to get one.”

Amy frowned, thinking hard. “I think my Dad said we got ours from the Wally World, I think they got them there.”

The siren tilted her head to one side as she ingested this. “Where this Wally World at? Who rules it?”

Laura pointed off into the city. “Over that way somewhere, I think. By the highway. I don't think they have a king, though.” Robbie shook his head. “The manager's kinda mean, but he doesn't have a crown or nothin'.”

Owen stared at the bird woman for a moment. “Something tells me, Berry,” he said, careful not to say anything too upsetting, “that they won't let you in.”

Berenice looked at him quizzically again. “Why, Ow-win? Am I not allowed? Is it a club, like you?”

The children looked at each other warily. This was one of those uncomfortable subjects. While they had made it abundantly clear that they didn't care that she was part bird, they had not introduced her to any adults, only speaking to their parents about 'our friend Berry', which got the usual response whenever they came up with their latest hare-brained scheme for the day. As a precocious group of kids, they found this exercise exasperating, but they were also well aware that even in a town as odd as Lost Haven, and even in a loose a district as the area near the college campus, and even in as weird a times as had occurred since the modern events they had seen, taking Berenice anywhere public aside from their meetings in the park was likely to cause no end of trouble. So they had been painstakingly slow in introducing even the idea of her to their parents, and certainly weren't about to do something as brazen as shopping.

But these were complex subjects, ones they weren't really able to fully grasp themselves. Trying to explain ideas about racism or, in this case species-ism, to a girl who hadn't even grown up in their culture (or any culture, really) was a little beyond their abilities. Most of their efforts to train her in human activities was in an attempt to normalise her enough that their parents wouldn't freak out at her introduction, something the group had been carefully planning for the past few weeks. They were also aware, on a semi-conscious level, that however nice they were to her, Berenice was very much a dangerous creature. They only had to look at her feet, whose four-inch talons and grasping toes were gripping the fence somewhat agitatedly even now, to know that. Even her smile was a little un-nerving, owing to the amount of very sharp teeth in her mouth. They had yet to understand that she had even more dangerous abilities.

The beginning of Berenice's real troubles, which had yet to come to a head, had happened on one of her morning hunts. A young man had gone hiking in the woods for a wonderful and sunny Saturday during his summer break from college, and had happened upon her while she was perched on a stump, finishing her breakfast. Berenice wasn't exactly hard to look at, owing to the human body used as her base during her creation, but at that moment she had the remains of a rabbit hanging from one talon, and was holding a bloody chunk in both hands while gnawing at a bone, face and arms up to the elbow smeared and spattered in gore. The man had, quite understandably, panicked, but some wiring in his brain went astray, and instead of fleeing from the 'monster', he had frozen, slowly reaching for his belt. Being an experienced outdoorsman, he had his cell phone, a pocket knife, and bear spray at ready availability. With one hand he opened his phone's camera, while with the other he held out the spray, aiming at her with both.

Some internal danger sense notified the harpy that she was being watched, and her head snapped up just as the flash from the camera, which the man had forgotten to disable, went off. Startled, more instincts had taken over, and her hindbrain thinking she was under attack triggered her primary defence. So she screamed.

The piercing shriek rang about the woods for a significant distance, startling birds out of nests, sending fluffy animals scurrying for burrows and scaring the bejeezus out of other hikers in the area. However, the poor sod who had triggered it was far worse off, standing only forty feet from her. As the leading edge of the sonic blast hit him, his eardrums burst, and his mind reeled from the wave of magic that rolled along with it. Conscious thought was impossible, his perfectly normal human brain having no defence whatsoever leading to a mass disruption of neural pathways as it scrambled to find a way of dealing with this. Berenice had only let off a short burst, perhaps three seconds, but it left the man a gibbering mess, and he had fled into the woods, heedless of obstacles or reasoning. The harpy went back to her meal, satisfied that she had defended her kill from what her brain now knew was a food thief. And a phone lay on the path, screen broken but containing a video that would be very concerning to anyone viewing it.

This having happened several days ago, the man had been found, dried blood still on the side of his head, muttering to himself deafly and wandering the woods. The police had just today pieced together enough of his story to start tracking down where he was attacked, and just that morning another hiker had turned in the broken phone to the park service in case someone had been looking for it. With the GPS still operating, it was only a matter of time before the authorities knew they had yet another strange and dangerous creature roaming the area.

The kids didn't know any of this, and Berenice barely remembered the event, but it was about to be a very significant part of her life. At the moment, however, social complexities were the issue of her day. And she was paying careful attention to he little friends' reactions to her question. “Ah-mee,” she said. They hadn't yet figured out why she mispronounced their names, despite them pronouncing them very clearly when introducing themselves to her. “Tell me. Am I not good yet? Is that why Wally won't let me have a bin?”

Amy, stalwart leader of the group and breaker of bad news when necessary, steeled herself to fudge her way through this conversation with bluster and confidence when she caught sight of something that caused her breath to catch in her throat.

Owen's parents, who earlier that day had told him to be home early so they could visit his grandparents, were entering the park. Their sacred space, their most favourite haunt, violated by the presence of adults! And much worse than merely their presence was that it coincided with Berry's. The meeting they had been so meticulously planning, their carefully laid schemes and hints and ideas, was about to come crashing down around their ears, and Amy could do nothing to stop it, now. She hissed through her teeth and whisper-shouted, “Down, quick!” But even as she said it she knew it was hopeless. Not only were they out in plain view with no cover, but getting their odd friend to understand why she had to hide would take much longer than the scant seconds they had. As it was, Owen's parents had already caught sight of them, and had stopped short in shock. And then Owen's mother screamed.

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)

That's kinda what I was figuring, which is why I only even touched briefly on the police unit thing. And a total of two magic users involved in her backstory at all. The fact that she's not aware of those social constructs might cause some problems? But it's not like she knows enough(or any) magic to get flashy with. I was guessing there'd be maybe the detective and some sort of police...consultant? That was working with him in order to track down and bring back the missing girl and hope no one notices too much. I am also bad at subtext. And pop culture, I guess, because I haven't seen either of those shows?

Create-A-Hero: A Superhero RPG Season 2- New Horizons (Closed)

Character you have created: Berenice
Alias: Siren, Harpy, Bird-lady, assorted other nicknames.

Speech Color: 82ca9d

Character Alignment: Hero(mostly)
Identity: Known, as that's how she introduces herself.

Character Personality:
Berenice would like to be a good person. Trouble with that is that she doesn't know what exactly constitutes a "good" person yet, and just goes by instinct. In fact, much of her thought process is still instinctual. She has the drive to help others in need, but can get in the way because she's not completely aware of what might be the most effective way to go about that goal. She likes children, will defend the helpless, and in general could be described as helpful, but there are some quirks in there. She doesn't understand the concept of pets, and as a carnivore will happily eat a cat, dog, or other small, furry thing, right up until someone tells her it's wrong. She is inquisitive, somewhat bothersome about it, much like a child who asks repeated questions about things because she is, in essence, at a child's level of understanding the world. Her speech is peppered with chirps and other bird noises. She is very magpie like, and will steal shiny objects regardless of intrinsic value. Those few people she has met that she likes enough, she will include in her "flock", and tends to gift them stolen objects and dead animals, at least until they refuse those gifts. She will keep trying until she finds something they like. She also has an annoying habit of trying to perch on those people.

She has no built in moral compass, really, and has had to develop one as she learns. Since her first real contact with the outside world was children in a poor neighbourhood of West Lost Haven, who had already had contact with strange things and were unlikely to run from a non-hostile bird woman, she has found ample reason to copy and learn from them, so she has become playful, energetic, and rather open-minded. The local parents, having yet to meet the "Bird Lady", have been operating under the assumption that the kids have come up with a community imaginary friend or mascot, and both parties are likely in for a surprise when then meet each other, with variable effects on Berenice's psyche depending on how they react to her presence.

Uniform/costume: Berenice is just coming to grips with the concept of modesty, so designing a uniform is kind of beyond her. She typically wears very loose-fitting, light tank tops cut to allow her wings, and a sort of draped loincloth over her waist. Other than that, she doesn't own much.

A good approximation of her looks, though her plumage goes all the way up to her navel from her talons and she has a fanned tail like a hawk's:

[+]

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/mythology/images/3/30/Harpy-1.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130619202632

Origin Info/Details: Berenice is the result of a sorcerer trying to channel ancient Greek magic to create a servant for himself. After researching quite a number of possibilities, he decided to try and make a combination of harpy and siren. Gathering what he thought were the correct materials, including several live birds, a female human singer, spell reagents both ancient and modern, and a good bit of raw magic, he focused his mind and cast the almost correct enchantment. Berenice was created, but the resulting backlash of energy blew the unlucky wizard apart and caused a psychic reverberation that destroyed the built-in purpose of serving him in his creation's mind. The only remaining vestige of that is the (incomplete) knowledge of the English language and her name.

The newly born siren meandered about for a bit, fully formed in an adult and with all her instincts in sharp relief, but with no one to tell her what the world she was born into was like, she has had to figure it out on her own. The mage's lair, a shack built on a rocky promontory just west of Lost Haven, was torn asunder by her creation, but she has converted it into a ramshackle nest and hunts and explores from there. Local neighbourhoods would most likely have begun reporting her appearances, were it not for more spectacular displays that regularly happen in and around the city, though curious people could easily find newspaper articles. When she can get away with it, she has begun playing with local children in parks.

She has also begun experimenting with her mystic powers, which are not developed much yet as she has had no formal education. This has, in addition to acting like a sort of beacon letting people with the right senses know there's an inexperienced spell-caster in the area, caused a number of odd phenomenon near her nest, including a sudden increase in non-native plant growth and a growing numbers of people wandering in the area to have memory loss.

Eventually Berenice will probably grow to be a force for good, but for the moment, she is very much in a precarious state, given the wrong influences or experiences, she could very easily become more like the sirens of ancient legend, cruelly luring people to their doom for her own amusement and feeding. This was actually originally the purpose she was created for, and the seed still remains, even if only as a subconscious trigger point for now.

Hero Type: Supernatural/mystic
Power Level: City level
Powers:

BIIIRDDD GIIIIIRLLL

-Magic use: Berenice can, through effort and practise, cause changes in the natural world through the use of mystic forces. These changes include accelerated or decelerated plant growth, attraction and captivation of animals, localised climate variation to make herself more comfortable(very small area of only a few acres), and bewitching weak-willed people into helping her. In addition to those in-born magics, she can learn and utilise written forms of incantations and cast runes and other wards, though she doesn't know any and has no access to them.

-The Siren's Song: Just like those legendary beasts, Berenice can use her voice to captivate those around her. Within a clearly audible range(between 100 and 500 feet, depending on local variables), those hearing her sing become entranced with her, wanting nothing more than to help her and defend her, or even just be near her. While this is a magical, psychic effect, it does not give her control over them, save that most of those bewitched in such away would desire to appease her and grant her requests. This will not cause anyone to do anything they wouldn't normally do, nor does it grant them any sort of abilities they wouldn't normally have. For example, while some carpenter would be more than happy to build a house for her, he could not do the plumbing for it, nor would he turn his hammer and go kill someone for her. A poet would write her a sonnet, but could not suddenly play guitar or use a gun unless he already had those skills.

-Harpy's Scream: As another use of her voice, Berenice can scream. This is extremely loud, noticeable from miles away, and sounds like a hunting hawk's cry. It hits in a flared cone area in front of her, spreading out as the sound waves dissipate and getting progressively less effective the further one is.
At point blank range, up to twenty feet, the combination of sound waves, magic, and wind power create a concussive force capable of breaking bones, stripping air from lungs, and outright killing normal creatures with no defenses. Even those with some survivability will experience hearing damage, burst blood vessels in vulnerable area like the eyeballs and sinus cavity, difficulty breathing, and gale force winds
Between twenty and fifty feet, ear-drums are ruptured without protection and the sound levels can induce unconsciousness, while the magic levels may actually cause temporary psychosis or delusional confusion, as well as being pushed back by force of wind
Between fifty and a hundred feet, the sound levels can cause temporary deafness without protection, and magic effects include dizziness, loss of balance, nausea, and can still knock flying victims out of the air
Between one hundred and two hundred feet, all other sounds are cancelled out, and the decibel level can still cause swift headaches without protection. Magic effects are minimal at this range, though flight can still be disrupted by the wind energy created.
Beyond two hundred feet, this is just an exceptionally loud scream.

This scream will affect any creature that can hear and has no magical defenses against it.

Berenice can keep screaming for astonishing periods of time, up to two minutes with no difficulty. If she goes longer than four minutes, she risks damaging her vocal chords, and after five minutes she can no longer hold the scream and stops, rendering her mute for twenty-four to forty-eight hours while her throat repairs itself.

-Flight: Having wings that are mildly magically powered grants her the ability to fly, even if physics says something of her weight couldn't really get off the ground. As an intrinsic magic, this cannot be dispelled or otherwise turned off unless Berenice is killed, though tying or otherwise binding her wings will still ground her.

-Natural weapons: Berenice's talons are wicked things, easily as capable of piercing flesh as any other raptor might be. Owing to her size, they are around the same claw length and configuration as an osprey, though her grip strength is actually slightly better. They are also well built for both perching or standing on the ground.

-Psychic Immunity: As a magically constructed being of legend with her own pseudo-psychic abilities, Berenice is immune to psychic intrusions of any sort, except those of cosmic or infernal beings. Anyone attempting to read or invade her mind is psychically deafened by birdsong that interrupts all other thought, a cacophony that includes calls of everything from seagulls and crows to parrots and swallows. This assault ceases once they break contact, though it may be disorienting to unsuspecting people just scanning everyone in an area.

-Inheritance: Berenice has some of the natural abilities of the birds used in her creation. She has fairly water-proofed feathers, though she cannot dive like a tern. She can imitate the natural calls of any sea bird, black bird(crows, magpies, ravens, etc), song bird, or raptor. She can dive like a hawk, and has the equivalent level of eyesight. And she can maneuver quite well for her size, moving gracefully like a swallow even if she can't quite change direction as fast because of her inertial force. Her plumage is very hunting-oriented, white on the legs and under the wings, brown black and gold on the tops of her wings and tail. She is capable of subsisting on anything from tidbits of food garbage and week old roadkill to fruits and fresh fish, obviously preferring the latter options. While she has no beak, her teeth are very sharp, and she has only minuscule set of molars, but a triple set of canines and very sharp incisors.

Attributes:

Height: 4'1" (124 cm) normally, but if splayed out completely she's around 5'11" (180 cm)
Weight: 96 lbs (43.5 kg)
Wingspan: 12 feet(3.6 metres)

Strength Level: Normal Human
Speed/Reaction Timing Level: Lower than normal walking(awkward), 40 mph flight
Endurance at MAXIMUM Effort: 2 hours
Agility: Below human normal on ground, 5x in the air
Intelligence: Normal human(but uneducated)
Fighting Skill: Untrained

Resources: Minimal

Weaknesses:

Weak bits

Inexperience is the greatest killer, this holds doubly true for Berenice. While she has the fundamental skills to hunt and fish for herself, she has no formal combat training, and lacks even a basic understanding of most weaponry, having never been exposed to it. This means she will not dodge out of the way of guns pointed at her, though swinging a sword is generally a universal sign of hostility. This translates further than combat, however, and into social areas. She does not understand any normal human social cues of facial expressions. Scowling at her to show displeasure or trying to otherwise use subtle hints of anything will have no effect. Much like a trademarked character fro Guardians, she has no concept of subtleties in speech either, and takes everything quite literally, which can lead to a myriad of errors. This is obviously eventually going to stop effecting her through time.

What won't go away, even with hard training, is her strong tendency to distracted-ness. While just waving a shiny object may work in short term until she gets more combat experience, any sort of reflective surface can actually cause her to lose track of what she's doing, a hold-over from the spell used to create her. Her creator originally intended to keep her captivated with a silver mirror when he didn't need her doing something, and while she can break away from normal glass mirrors with some effort, silver mirrors will still hold her fast until removed from her sight. This will be doubly difficult, as she will follow the mirror, trying to stay within arm's length of it and stare into it, until such a time as it is covered or destroyed. Even a shard can do this. Thankfully, this isn't something even she can articulate, and the sourcerer's notes were destroyed, but experimentation could reveal this.
Music, oddly, can also entrance her, though not to the same extent. While it won't pull her out of combat, playing any sort of rhythmic music will cause her to lose track of time and just sing or hum along, especially wood winds and harp or bowed strings. She'll snap out of it only when someone actively tells her to get a move on, or she gets hungry enough.

Berenice has absolutely no defenses against cosmic creatures, and will have to fight them using her own talons, weapons, and magic. Olympian "gods", especially Poseidon, Aphrodite, and Zeus, can command her unrelenting obedience, as they are from her "pantheon".

Despite being made of magic, Berenice is a flesh and blood creature, and can be hurt by any and all conventional means. Guns, knives, punches, being hit with a car, etc. If she knew spells for it that could change, but she is not naturally armoured in any way, form, or fashion, with the notable exceptions of having a solid skeletal structure unlike most avians, and the hardened plates of her talons.

Berenice has all of the normal mobility limitations of birds. She can't really walk, having to resort instead the the rolling, hopping gait most birds do when on the ground. This is awkward to move about with, and she is easily caught off balance when landed. Perching doesn't cause nearly as many problems. Taking off from the ground requires several beats and hops to get moving enough, and is much easier from a high place.

Supporting Characters (Does your character have a significant other? A mother? Friend? Who are they, what do they have to do with your character?):
While not having direct knowledge of her, her creator's teacher is very interested in finding out what the hell happened to his student. He is an exceptional magic user, but the student was studying by himself at an undisclosed-to-his-master location, and the man is having no easy time finding the place.
The singer used as a sacrifice for the spell that created Berenice can still be seen in her face. Her mind and personality are gone, but any of her former friends, family, or associates will be able to recognise her face if they see her. Attempts to bring back the "real" girl will be useless, but it'll probably cause no ends of problems. The police are also interested in the reported disappearance, investigation of which has yielded evidence of kidnapping and trace amounts of magic. The detective in charge of her case in George Owens, LHPD Missing Persons Unit.

Do you know how to post pictures on RPG boards?: Not yet, I only really know how to link urls.

Sample Post:

Sample

Detective George Owens was not having the best night of his career, though he did have to be thankful that these people were at least more rational than most he saw when working missing persons cases. Looking across the interview table, he took them in again, in more detail than he had when they had first approached his desk. They were obviously young, a male and female in their very early twenties. The guy had a short mohawk that he had left down for the day, though the vibrant pink was defintely still distracting. The girl had a pixie cut in vivid blue, and Owens had already mentally filed them as "The Bubblegum Kids". Both had a multitude of piercings and wore torn up jeans and t-shirts declaring some quite rude things about authority figures, which did nothing to endear them to him. According to his notes, they were from a band in Portland known as "Raccoon's Stank", apparently some two-piece punk outfit.
"So," he said, pondering the evidence so far. "While you two had some hostile interactions with Ms. Graves, you say no one ever got violent?"
The girl nodded. "Yeah, she was always super bitchy about our music, y'know? Always actin' all superior an' shit. But we always just yelled at each other." The boy grinned. "There were some things I woulda liked ta do, but they weren't violent, y'know?"
Owens repressed a shudder. Creepy little kids. "Neither of you happen to know of anyone she might have ticked off, made enemies with? She didn't appear to have powers, right?"
The boy shrugged this time. "Not that I know of, man. She acted all Stevie Nicks, so I dunno how many people she mighta pissed off. As far as I know everyone here's freaks, but I never saw her do anything weird."
"Alright, thanks for your time. See the desk sergeant if you need anything." Owens got up, let them out of the interview room, and made his way back to his desk. Slouching into his chair, he flipped open the case file and sighed. he picture of the victim was fairly good, a recent picture of a girl with a long and pointed chin, arched eyebrows, and a cheery smile under a dainty nose, all framed with wavy golden brown hair. He hated cases like this. On the surface it was a clear-cut break in, with signs of a struggle everywhere. Couch flipped over, glass from picture frames over the floor, door busted in despite the deadbolt. But then the Sniffer had caught whiff of magic and everything went topsy-turvy.
Normally, he'd call it as a kidnapping with purpose for either human trafficking or some sick bastard doing the usual assault stuff, but magic made everything more complicated. The Mystics Unit detective had thrown all sorts of terms at him he didn't understand and had cleared everyone out while they got a "signature", but that had come up empty. Trace elements told them that some sort of enchantment and necromancy had taken place, but matched no known profile, so that was mostly a dead end. While the were following leads, their office was swamped almost as bad as the Meta-Crimes Department, so who even knew when they'd get back to him with something he could go on?
In the mean time, he had had to make the most traumatic call in any of these cases, the dreaded next-of-kin notification. After the usual hysterics, the parents had calmed down enough to give him relevant information. The victim, one Gloria Julianne Addams, age nineteen, had worked as a waitress locally while going through music school, and was a sophomore at the local community college and performed as a singer in a garage band that did some shows in the local region, though was nowhere near big enough for an obsessed fan theory. Both workplace and school had only turned up mild leads which went nowhere, and the band members were genuinely devastated to learn of their vocalist's disappearance. Leaving Owens with nothing to work with.
He was tired of this sort of crap. He had considered transferring to another unit, he thought idly as he scratched his chin and stared at a photo of a bar. But honestly, he enjoyed the occasional big win when they found and rescued someone, rare as it was. And that right there sparked the slight hint of recognition in his mind. There, in the photograph, was a mage. The photo was taken from behind the band during one of their performances at a local dive bar, out into the crowd, and there in the lower left corner halfway into the crowd was a face he recognised from a couple of other similar case files. He stood out of his chair and shuffled his coat on awkwardly, keeping a grip on the photo and not moving it from his view, memorising every detail of the bastard's face, a sallow and waxy looking man of maybe late thirties. Got you now, you son of a bitch! he thought, the rising excitement of finding a lead growing in his chest. Maybe, just maybe, here was another win for his team.

Additional Notes: Berenice has a bad habit of talking to herself to remind herself of things, resulting in an almost constant stream of low-grade muttering if she's thinking hard. She also does not understand toilets. At all. Or really any sort of personal hygiene not directly related to washing of leavings of meals and keeping her feathers well-groomed, thus her hair is a tangled mess and she does not smell pleasant.

Additional Comments: I would really appreciate collaborating with some people on Berenice's introductory arc, specifically the NPC parents of kids and potentially their calling in of heroes to deal with Berenice if they panic, which I personally think is the best way to intro her? Or if you've got other ideas. I dunno

RIFTS: Power and Plunder (A Palladium Megaverse RP)

Oh, man, you said the magic word "Palladium". I will say I would be interested, but my Palladium experience involves Heroes Unlimited and BtS, not Rifts itself, so I would be kinda lost on the setting despite having a bunch of pdfs from years ago on my computer.

'allo, folks

So as to length of time RPing, it's been...ugh. Almost twenty years, now? Dang but I am old. I started when I was twelve with birthday gifts of dice and watching my parents play AD&D, and it never stopped. Though I've been on other sites and whatnot, the whole play-by-post thing is still new-ish to me, so my response times and writing level tend to vary wildly based on extenuating factors, like schooling.

I tend towards fantasy, whether modern or medieval style, and some sci-fi. I also enjoy superhero shenanigans occasionally. I adore world building, so lore-intensive and character-arc heavy plays are kinda my wheelhouse. I tend to suck at dialogue, though, because there's only so much you can say in a big post before you're runnin' over other people, right?

Other interests aside from what brought me here(creative writing and teamwork) include my bad addiction to turn-based strategy games, armchair philosophy, geeking out over any sort of biology(I am studying to be a science teacher) and really anything that strikes my flighty fancy.

So yeah. That's me. Hi.