Codename – SENTINEL
Playbook – My Mission/ Do What Others Cannot
Real Name – Major Morgan McConnelly (Classified)
Greatest Foe – Husks (The Wronged) The deformed and insane test subjects from PROJECT NIGHT SKY (see below).
They all have one or two powers similar to Sentinel’s, but they are monstrously deformed, insane, and very violent.
Current Costume – http://imgur.com/ZtuyaeF
Internal DoD memo Classified ABOVE TOP SECRET
PROJECT NIGHT SKY
in 2013 an object made planetfall above Chelyabinsk Russia. Official reports state it was simply a meteor which broke up on entry into our atmosphere, official reports are wrong, the Object (NIGHTSKY S-00001) was a lone alien craft, intercepted and transported (Covert Flag: DEEP BLACK) to ________research installation in _____ _______, where it was then transferred to the United States (CONUS).
Of the crew, the sole surviving alien inside (NIGHTSKY XT-00013) was of a type we had never encountered before, It breathed an atmosphere of Argon and Krypton, but shared some surprsing genetic similarities with us. It was kept and interrogated for several months before it died.
Research:
Analysis of its anatomy and bodily functions yielded an interesting silvery hormone researchers dubbed “StellaChrome” (NIGHTSKY XTC-40) the source of which was a small gland, which pumped like a secondary heart, that pushed this substance throughout the alien’s body tissues.
preliminary testing on dish cloned human tissue yielded exciting results, this hormone bound itself into the cellular structures and further reacted to “Solar and UV Energies” which tightened the quantum bonds of that tissue sample, making it very nearly indestructible. This process was dubbed the ‘Photonucleic Effect’.
Testing – Success:
It was hypothesized that the generating organ the “Star Heart” as it was called, was required to regulate the StellaChrome in it’s host systems. A volunteer was accepted, and with only minor complications the Star Heart was implanted into Subject 0.
Subject 0 has experienced very few drawbacks, and a whole host of amazing benefits. Every cell in his body has increased in strength and durability, he is now practically indestructible by most standards (which has put a damper on further internal studies).
Newly discovered secondary effects of the Star Heart:
– A unique gravitational lensing effect which has allowed the subject limited levitation, and with several weeks’ practice, full unaided flight.
– Neural activity in the subject’s brain and motor neurons are increasing at an exponential rate, hinting at eventual speed and reaction times far beyond human norms.
Further Testing:
With the only extant Star Heart implanted into Subject 0, the next stage of testing moved on to a synthesized StellaChrome derivative known as SynChrome.
Human trials of the synthesized hormone were approved 11/10/13, wherein a group of military volunteers were dosed with SynChrome, the results were as impressive as they were horrifying. Each subject’s body was enhanced to a greater or lesser degree like Subject 0, but these enhancements came with a host of secondary mutations, mental aberrations were also a significant drawback. The subjects became unstable, and unfortunately most were able to escape before they could be neutralized. They remain at large.
END FILE
Medical File (Addendum):
Morgan’s augmentations have made many tertiary changes throughout his body.
– The StellaChrome in his cells absorbs and channels solar energy through his tissues, his body temperature is almost 20 degreess higher than human norms, with side advantage of killing off most pathogens and virus before they can affect him.
– His abilities increase the strain on his metabolism so he has an
increased diet (8,000-10,000 cal/day with supplements as needed)
– Needs several hours in direct sunlight for bodily cells and the Star Heart to recharge.
MISC:
His vastly increased strength has made adjusting to everyday life exceedingly difficult, he has accidentally destroyed equipment, buildings, vehicles, and injured several personnel, but as he continues practice and physical therapy for fine control of his movements, accidents have become exceedingly rare.
Smash +2 (Great at fighting)
Influence -1 (Not a people person, grating and harsh at times)
Maneuver +1 (Pretty agile and dextrous)
Protect +1 (Semper Fi)
Investigate 0 (Average wits and intellect)
Powers Summary:
Super Strength
Invulnerability
Flight
Super Speed/Reflexes
Super Stamina/Endurance
Enhanced Senses
Powers Profile:
2 Simple: Invulnerable Skin, Lift/Throw up to 100 tons
1 Difficult: Fly 2x faster than the speed of sound
1 Borderline: Move fast enough that time seems to slow down (but does not stop)
1 Possible: Focus his eyesight and see in UV/IR spectrum.
1 Impossible: Survive in hostile environments (space, underwater, etc.) without assistance (breath mask or something)
Limitations (+2 Bonds, extra simple power)
– (When my character pushes themselves and their power too hard, it affects them negatively in some way.)
Sentinel gets tired and burned out, and needs to spend time absorbing solar energy, resting, and eating to regain his strength.
– (My character has something that weakens or negates their powers.)
Sentinel absorbs Solar Energy regularly. Without it, he gets sick and his powers start weakening within a day, and continue becoming weaker each day, until he can spend time in the sun again and recharge.
Bonds (Group +3)
Others: 1
STRIKE (Law Enforcement): 1
The City: 1
Playbooks
My Mission (STRIKE Division)
The uncontrollable evolution of science, technology and superhuman abilities have caused rates of superhuman crime, terrorism, and unexplained disastrous anomalies to outpace the ability of national military or police forces to cope. To combat this, The United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to create a multi-national research and enforcement division, with operatives and teams working closely with local law enforcement to identify, contain, or neutralize superpowered threats.
STRIKE Division (Superhuman Tactical Response, and International Key Enforcement) was founded, pulling superpowered agents and operatives from all of it’s member nations, and using the co-operative research and Development efforts of various tech firms and research labs for technical and scientific support.
STRIKE Teams are in almost constant operation around the world.
Do What Others Cannot
“Sometimes completing the mission isn’t as clean or tidy as you hope. I always complete my mission. Make of that what you will.”
Comment about power profile. List in it what you really want to do with the character actively. Defensive powers are already implicit in the Invulnerability power, although they are useful for establishing benchmarks or with the Protect move. You have in the power profile two Lift/throw, two Resist and two fly aspects. Repetition ins’t good for a power profile as you’ll be pushing your powers very often. Other things like, smashing through walls, knocking out people just kicking the pavement, passing throw a cloud of machine guns bullets unharmed, for me, should be good aspects to include.
good point, I guess I got the impression that the power profile was stuff that was progressively harder to do, like lifting thing a is easy, but lifting thing b is gonna take a lot more effort.
that’s why I had multiples, but this is cool because now I can do even more cool stuff.
That’s the idea, but you’d better set the upper benchmark and keep those simple and difficult actions for things you really wanna do in game, such as throw things or fight.
Yeah, the actions definitely need to progress in difficulty, but if you only list one action then you’re limiting yourself so you’ll probably be Pushing often. As long as you have an understanding of that progression, you can go ahead and mix up the actions at each level so you’re not quite so limited.
I’ve found that players have the most fun being able to do a bunch of stuff out of the gate rather than one thing progressively, but it works fine either way.
As Joaquim Ball-llosera said though, what you write in your Powers Summary is your justification in the fiction already and where you look if the EIC asks you “can you do that?”. Your Powers Profile is the answer to, “ok you can do that, so how hard is it for you to do that?”
I’ve added a bunch of advice to the section and it’ll be in the semi-final draft once I get back dev edits.
Orrr you could just go with what Kyle Simons said up there. Takes too long to type on my phone!
Original (and somewhat off) Post:
My impression of the Powers Summary vs. Power Profile: the summary says what you can do in the fiction, while the profile determines how hard certain actions are. If it’s not on your profile, it may be possible, but its difficulty is undetermined in the fiction (you’ve not really tried it yet).
Iron Man would have “Fly at xxx speed” on his summary, but it might not appear on his profile at all. That would leave things entirely up to the EIC as to when he needs to Push his flight: presumably not just to get from point A to point B, but maybe he would if he needed to maneuver fast, stop suddenly, catch someone, etc. He certainly would if he wanted to fly faster than xxx (and he might even have to Burnout: it’s entirely up to the EIC).
I do think this is an area of the game that could use a bit of fleshing out, but that’s what I’ve grokked so far.
See Kyle Simons response on a related post:
…to do something Possible, you have to make the Burnout move and when you try to do something that is not on your Powers Profile you have to Push. And there are consequences to the Push move that also depend on whether it’s Simple, Difficult or Borderline. But mostly yes, fictional distinctions and to help you figure out boundaries and what your character can and can’t do.
https://plus.google.com/115095130640632532377/posts/6xqT1s4EXu2
Yeah, you can see how I usually handle it in the playtest. Especially during the first session when I’m still getting a handle on what all everyone can do. “Have you done that before?” (i.e. “Is it on your powers profile?”) if not, then I’ll usually ask the player and we’ll come up with the difficulty together.
But yeah, defensive things must be in the Powers Summary because that means you now have justification in the fiction to do those things. Defensive stuff is less suited to your Powers Profile, at least in the beginning, because they’re implicit, to some degree. Having organic metal over your body means that a bullet isn’t going to get through – no need to Push or roll for that. But you’ll want to have a concept of how strong or how much they can take, for sure and the EIC will be exploring and helping you flesh this out naturally by throwing challenges at you:
EIC: The nuclear bomb goes off and the explosion is rocketing towards you, what do you do?
Player: I dive down into the sewers, hopefully that will lessen the impact, at least a little!
EIC: Alright, go ahead and Defy Danger, with the danger being rocketed by nuclear forces!
EIC: “The nuclear bomb goes off and the explosion is rocketing towards you, what do you do?”
Player: No problem, I let my organic metal cover my body to withstand the full force of the explosion!
EIC: Whoa there. This isn’t exactly a bullet now is it, I’m guessing you haven’t been rocked by too many nuclear explosions?
Player: Well, no. It’s not on my profile or anything, but I can definitely do it.
EIC: Alright, well let’s see, you’ve never done it right? Never know until you try, you’re definitely Pushing and this is a nuclear explosion. You’re not at ground zero or anywhere close to it, so I guess you could get away with “Borderline,” sound good?
Player: Ok, sure, I can see that.