Tuesday, January 31, 2023

The Syracuse Seven - Bush League Hero Team for Tiny Supers

The Syracuse Seven are a very minor-league superhero team that operates out of Syracuse, New York.  They're government sanctioned and funded and act as something of a proving ground for newer supers to get some experience before being promoted to more important groups.  The current roster includes:

Agent Augur, nominal team leader, government liaison, and intrusive telepath

Justifier, mysterious mimic, crime-buster, master detective, and often AWOL on other business

KO Clown, living cartoon, team defender, enthusiastically violent in a kid-friendly sort of way

The Leaping Lizard, genius gadgeteer who turned himself into an anthropomorphic reptile

Meteoric, young mutant whose powers make her a living cannonball

Mister Corundum, quick-thinking alien brick, team's tactical coordinator

Scintillator, versatile energy manipulator whose powers are still developing


Agent Augur is pretty much the "team dad" guy with no personal life to speak of, and does all the paperwork needed to keep things going.  Justifier is absent so often they're barely an associate member, but provides a lot of the investigative skill and intel the rest of the team is light on.  KO Clown is just plain weird, but likes bonking bad guys and the younger team members love his cartoons.  The Leaping Lizard is the team science guy, good at coming up with useful gadgetry and competent in a fight too.  Meteoric is the team's flyer and speedster rolled into one, as well as being a backup brick.  Mister Corundum is extremely tough and as masterful at solving tactical problems as he is inept at understanding the finer points of human culture.  Scintillator is the team's ranged expert with a specialty in dealing with mobs of low-level targets.

___________________________________________________________________________

Agent Augur

"John Smith" had his old identity officially erased when he volunteered for the enhancement program that made him into Agent Augur, and there's little room in his new life for anything but his work now.  That work was meant to be as an intelligence agent, a super-spy who could use his induced telepathy to ferret out secrets and detect hostile schemes before they could come to fruition.  That plan went by the wayside.  He was still finishing his training when several new international agreements were signed and his kind of "work" was officially banned and disavowed.  

Making the best of a bad deal, the shadowy agency that had recruited him gave a new task - acting as government liaison and coordinator for the hero team he now works with.  This put him in the awkward position of needing to fight alongside (and against) supers who could bench press a car, breathe fire and bounce bullets off their chests, something all the mind-reading in the world wouldn't help much against.  Still, he keeps his head down and does his best, usually dealing with henchmen or squishier villains while his allies deal with the bigger threats.  He's also a good "face" for the team, dealing with local law enforcement, politicians and new media with some aplomb thanks to his casual and quite unethical mind reading.

Agent Augur habitually uses his mind-reading to say and do the right thing in social situations, but it's debatable how much of that stems from a desire to be liked and how much is just manipulation.  Whichever it is he's pretty subtle about it, although if he's ever forced to work without his psionic edge his teammates may wonder why he seems so "off" all of a sudden.  With villains he's much more open about his prying.

Description: Tall, powerfully built man of Irish descent, usually dressed in nondescript clothing appropriate to the setting.  He looks good in anything from a tuxedo to a old flannel shirt, but does his best to avoid drawing attention when he can.  When working with his hero team he adopts an unmarked set of urban camo fatigues with black combat boots.  He has a deep but soft voice normally, although he can do a fine "drill sergeant" routine when he needs to.

Gender: Male            Age: 32            Height: 6'1"            Eyes: Green

Hair: Red                   Skin: Caucasian, Heavily Freckled              Build: Athletic

Archetype:  Controller

Stress Capacity:  5

Power Traits: 

Brawler - When fighting Unarmed, you Evade with 2d6 rather than 1d6. 

Crowd Control - You can use any power that does not directly inflict damage on up to three targets rather than one.

Mind Reading 2 - As an action, you may read the mind of one target.  You gain Advantage on your next roll against them, and for one turn you may Evade their attacks without taking an Evade action.

Power Origin: Enhanced

Weakness: 

Disembodied Intelligences - Whether they're astral projections, ghostly spirits or beings of pure energy, immaterial mentalities are a jarring discordancy to his psionic senses.  Complains of headaches and nosebleeds when such entities are in the vicinity, which may give away their presence.  Artificial intelligences hosted on hardware like a computer or a robotic body don't cause him problems, though.

Trained Weapons (roll 2d6): Unarmed                                     

Mastered Weapons (roll 3d6): Karate Chops

Tactics

Agent Augur uses his telepathy to read his foes' weaknesses and avoid their strikes but physically he's still just a normal human and very fragile compared to most supers.  His fighting style relies on skill and precision rather than brute force, and he actively avoids heavily-armored enemies that he simply can't handle.  As a Controller archetype he can scan three enemies at a time, and he'll look for openings to use the Advantage gained for things other than just trading hits.  Sometimes talking an enemy down or intimidating them is more effective than simply fighting them.  Outside of a fight he's also very good at interrogations and negotiations, as you'd expect.

Advancements

He could expand his psionics in many directions, but really wants to take advantage of his Crowd Control trait when he can.  Strong choices include Healing 1, Invisibility up to 3, or adding Ranged proficiency followed by Snare at 2.  Other good "mentalist" powers include Telekinesis and Super-Senses, although they lack Crowd Control synergy.  You could also try adding Blast as a mental attack, although he's still not going to become a combat powerhouse.  If you wanted to break the mold, his further "super agent" enhancements could go down a more physical route, adding Super-Strength, Armor and Super-Speed to become a physical powerhouse as well as a mental one.

Among the regular traits Tough and Armor Master would help his fragility issues, Beastspeaker is a great "telepath" trait, and Perceptive, Eidetic Memory, Detective and Resolute are all quite on-theme.  Adding Stress Capacity might also be helpful, albeit not very efficient.

___________________________________________________________________________

Justifier

Justifier is largely a mystery even to their teammates, and to criminals they're a terrifying legend.  Whoever they are, their ability to infiltrate all but the most closely-knit gangs and operations drives crooks to a paranoid frenzy that probably does more damage to them than anything the vigilante could accomplish alone.  Much more of a lone wolf than a group player, Justifier does maintain a tentative membership on the local hero team for times when they've finished their investigations and decide that some backup is needed to deal with a supervillain threat or an unusually large or well-equipped gang.

It's pretty common for Justifier to vanish for long periods of time, and is really more of an associate team member at best - or shady ally at worst.  Most likely has other things going on outside of the local area.  Agent Augur may know more details (he's hard to keep secrets from) but isn't telling anyone else other than to vouch for Justifier as reliable. 

Description: Can look like anyone, anytime.  Uses stealth and imitation to infiltrate the enemy until ready to strike.  May mimic another hero to confuse and intimidate foes.  Often duplicates whoever they're speaking to.  Has a multitude of other forms for use as disguises, ranging from inconspicuous civilians to uniformed police to costumed criminal henchmen.  No one knows if there's a "real" form behind the masks.

Gender: Unknown            Age: Unknown           Height: Variable            Eyes: Variable

Hair: Variable                   Skin: Variable             Build: Variable

Archetype:  Expert

Stress Capacity:  6

Power Traits: 

Barfighter - You are proficient with Improvised Weapons.  Rather than Mastering one, when fighting with an Improvised Weapon you gain an extra action each turn.

Detective - Gain Advantage when searching for clues about the identity, motives or whereabouts of an individual.

Insightful - Gain Advantage when testing to determine whether someone is being truthful or lying.

Mastery - You may select two extra traits, but you may only take one power trait in total. 

Shapeshifting/Mimic 1 - As an action you can alter your appearance to that of another person.  Normal clothing can be imitated as well.  Gain Advantage on any attempt to pass yourself as someone else or deceive others as to your identity.

Sneaky - Gain Advantage when testing to conceal or move about without being noticed.

Power Origin: Magical

Weakness: 

Driving Goal - Protect the innocent at all costs, even if it means a criminal must go unpunished for now.  Bad at dealing with hostage situations and must always try to rescue endangered civilians.  Criminals get no such consideration, and can simply be left to their fate.

Trained Weapons (roll 2d6): Improvised Weapons, Unarmed                                    

Mastered Weapons (roll 3d6): Punches

Tactics

Justifier isn't much of a fighter by heroic standards, and relies heavily on stealth and trickery to stay alive in a fight while more powerful teammates deal with the actual supervillains.  They can hold their own against non-powered criminals and henchmen, often infiltrating their ranks and taking them out by surprise and using their own weapons against them.  Outside of a fight they're an excellent manhunter and good at breaching organizational security to work from within.  Much more of a vigilante "mystery man" than a cape and cowl super.  Justifier's sole power is a magical boon of some kind, and if it's somehow negated Justifer retains their current form but can't adopt a new one. 

Advancements

Traits, traits and more traits.  Maybe pick up Ranged, Light and Heavy Melee Weapon proficiencies and masteries to give him more options.  Once you've gotten Tough extra Stress Capacity couldn't hurt.  Armor Mastery might be a little restrictive unless you can get a "miracle molecule" supersuit that you can use without hindering Mimic.  You're always going to struggle to stand up to powered villains in a toe-to-toe fight, so don't do that.

___________________________________________________________________________

KO Clown

KO Clown started out as a character in the 1930s "Clown Town" cinematic cartoon series, where he mostly played the hero by showing up at the last moment to stop the scheme of Mister Mean by bonking him with a hammer.  The shorts weren't the most sophisticated humor even for their era, but became popular enough to get a newspaper strip and later a children's radio program and comic book.  In the late 1940s a young boy named Ricky Little somehow gained the ability to summon KO Clown into our reality by saying the magic word "Okaykayo!" and the two of them spent about five years bonking real-life mobsters, recalcitrant Nazis, mad scientists and Communist spies along with other peculiar Golden Age heroes.

Ricky disappeared when he was sixteen, the same night that a studio fire destroyed the original prints of the Clown Town shorts and that was the last anyone saw of KO Clown for decades.  Clown Town faded into obscurity by the end of the 1950s, and remained an obscure "lost media" curiosity until 2023 when a forgotten film reel was discovered by a film historian.  As luck would have it, that historian had a ten year old daughter and the magic word worked as well for her as it had for Ricky Little.  It took a while to explain concepts like "child endangerment" to KO Clown, but he eventually accepted that things had changed.  He now works with a minor superhero team rather than a unpowered preteen crimefighting partner.  Many villains hate him with a passion - getting beaten silly by an old-fashioned cartoon is embarrassing - but he's actually got his fans even in the supercrime community.

But no matter how busy things get, he still makes time to visit little Susie and always comes when she calls out "Okaykayo!"  Her father is still digging into KO Clown's past, and there are some things buried there that might be awkward for everyone involved.  If KO Clown can manifest here in the real world, why not other cartoon characters like Mister Mean?  And what happened to Ricky Little?

Description: A cartoon clown.  Tall, gangly, rubber-limbed, wearing bright blue pants, a canary yellow shirt with big red buttons, white suspenders and gloves, and enormous red clown shoes.  He carries a huge red mallet that's taller than he is, except when it's tucked away in hammerspace.  His clown makeup changes to reflect his emotions, which are limited to glad, sad, or mad most of the time.  Sometimes he goes all monochrome just for the sake of nostalgia.  Has a jolly voice and his movements are weirdly jerky, like early cel animation.

Gender: Male            Age: Clowns Are Eternal           Height: 6'2"          Eyes: Bright Blue

Hair: Neon Green Fright Wig       Skin: Pasty White Under The Clown Makeup     Build: Lanky

Archetype:  Defender

Stress Capacity:  9

Power Traits: 

Protector - Once per turn when an ally is hit, you can take that hit yourself instead.

Shapeshifting/Stretching 2 - Recover one Stress at the start of your turn.  Reduce all damage dealt to you by one, to a minimum of one.

Super-Strength 1 - You gain Advantage when rolling to do something with brute force.  Your Melee attacks deal one extra damage. 

Origin: Dimensional?

Weakness: 

"Kissy Stuff" - He's a character from a 1930s children's cartoon and has the mentality of a stereotypical ten year old boy.  Even mild displays of affection throw him off his stride, and explicit sexual displays are pretty much his Achilles' heel - assuming he even recognizes them for what they are.  He may express concern about catching cooties when fighting female supervillains.

Trained Weapons (roll 2d6): Heavy Melee                                       

Mastered Weapons (roll 3d6): Big Old Clown Hammer

Tactics

KO Clown's a melee beater who loves to throw himself in the path of attacks on his allies.  He'll usually try to block a high damage attack so he can reduce it a bit, but sucking up one point hits will still give his regeneration something to do.  He's very hard hitting himself, dealing three damage with his mallet or similarly oversized weapons, and his stretching gives him at least three times the reach of a normal human.  He doesn't have much to offer when it comes to ranged combat, although that won't stop him from trying if he's tempted by a display of pies or a set of juggler's clubs.  He technically lacks movement powers, but his super-stretchy legs and arms let him cover ground a bit faster than normal and makes him much better at climbing - at least when he doesn't pull a comedic pratfall and get all knotted up.

Advancements

First priority is to get that third tier of Shapeshifting/Stretching, which bumps him up to Armor 2 and Regeneration 2 and really lets him do a good job tanking.  After that he might want a tier or two of Super-Movement/Jump, and the Acrobatic, Tough, Nimble Fingers and Barfighter traits are all pretty useful early on.  He'd eventually like one or two more tiers of Super-Strength, some Immunities to reflect being a cartoon and a tier of Shapeshifting/Mimic so he can adopt a "normal person" look when he wants to be less noticeable.  Training in Unarmed Combat with the Brawler trait and buying extra Stress Capacity come somewhere even farther down the line, and there are always utility traits like Resolute or Lucky.

___________________________________________________________________________

The Leaping Lizard

Lawson Long was a child prodigy and polymath, patenting his first invention at the age of 13.  That would have been more remarkable if his parents hadn't been the mostly-retired genius heroes Longhair and Knack.  He decided early on that he wanted to follow in their footsteps, although they flatly refused to let him go the "sidekick" route and insisted he finish his formal education to at least a master's level before he even thought about entering the hero biz.  He was done with that by the time he was 15, but got distracted for a few years by doing a lot of at-home fringe science with his parents' lab equipment.  By the time he was 19 he'd developed a retroviral serum that he was confident would give him a useful set of powers, and opted to test it on himself without supervision.

His parents came home from vacation two weeks later to discover their son had turned himself into a lizard.  A super-strong lizard who could leap tall buildings in a single bound and heal the broken bones from a bad landing in minutes, but still...a lizard.  It was a bit much even for a pair of superheroes.  Lawson declined their offers to help "cure" him and, after much argument, convinced them that he was happy in his new form and mostly wanted their help getting into a proper training program for new supers.  They called in a few favors and sent their son the lizard off to a government-sponsored program.  He graduated with flying (or leaping, I suppose) colors and has been assigned to "small city level" hero team where he's building a rep under his new supranym, the Leaping Lizard.  His parents have quietly asked the team's handlers to keep an eye on Lawson just to make sure his proclivity for self-experimentation doesn't go too far.  Having a T-Rex show up for Thanksgiving would be awkward, the dining room is already pretty crowded for family get-togethers.   

Description: A long-tailed anthropomorphic lizard, covered in fine scales and generally naked except for crossed utility belts full of gadgetry.  Leanly muscular but with long and very powerful legs.     

Gender: None Apparent, Uses He/Him              Age: 22                   Height: 5'8" (+6' Tail)        

Eyes: Orange With Slitted Pupils        Scales: Brilliant Green          Build: Long-Legged

Archetype:  Gadgeteer

Stress Capacity:  6

Power Traits: 

Inventor - Once per day you may create a Power Gadget that can emulate any Tier 1 Power for one roll or use.  You may have up to three Power Gadgets at a time.

Regeneration 1 - You recover one Stress at the start of your turn. 

Super-Movement/Jump 1 - When you jump, you can cover several city blocks.  When you land from a jump, you may opt to deal everyone in Melee with you one damage.

Super-Strength 1 - You gain Advantage when rolling to do something with brute force.  Your Melee attacks deal one extra damage. 

Power Origin: Inventor 

Weakness: 

Cold - He's an ectothermic reptile and low temperatures really slow him down and leave him groggy.  He's invented some specially-fitted heated clothing that can keep him going in wintertime but they're bulky and constrictive enough to disadvantage him just as badly as freezing does.

Trained Weapons (roll 2d6): Unarmed                                       

Mastered Weapons (roll 3d6): Kicks & Tail Lashes

Tactics

The Leaping Lizard is strong and fast and heals even serious damage with amazing speed, but isn't particularly tough by superhuman standards.  He's still refining the genetic restructuring serums that caused his transformation so that may change over time.  In a fight he looks for clusters of enemies to leap into, hitting and running to keep them off balance.  Against single targets he relies on powerful kicks and lashing with his tail, and really tough enemies who can shrug regular hits off might get smacked with a lamp post or handy automobile after Focusing first.

He tries to keep an array of Power Gadgets on him at all times and uses them sparingly.  The most common gadgets emulate Summoning 1, creating 2-4 slender robotic minions that unfold from compact metallic capsules.  Other gimmicks include visual scrambler nodes (Invisibility 1 - that can last a while) and dimensional bypass modules (Phasing 1 or Teleport 1) for stealthy intrusion work, force projector wands (Telekinesis 1 - very short-lived but handy) and neuroprobes (Mind Reading 1 - mostly for digging out secrets).     

Advancements

Getting Super-Strength up to Tier 3 would help a lot with getting past damage resistances, and climbing the Armor tree would increase his durability.  Improving his starting Regeneration and Super-Movement/Jump to Tier 2 are slightly lower priority.  Acrobatic, Brawler, Educated, Opportunist, Tough and Vigilant are all attractive normal Traits, and you might add Wealthy if he does well patenting his strange inventions.

___________________________________________________________________________

Meteoric

Justine Cross is a young mutant whose powers manifested about five years ago, resulting in her permanent transformation into her biometallic form.  Her bigoted family immediately turned their back on her, but her high school teachers and friends helped her find counselling and support, culminating in several years of training in a specialized academy in upstate New York.  Since graduation she's gone on to join a small local super team as part of an outreach program intended to improve mutant relations with the broader supers community.  She's pretty well adjusted considering everything she's gone through and gets along well with her teammates.  They've become found family for her along with her former academy classmates.  Justine has become wary about involving her old high school connections with her new life out of fear they'll be targeted by villains and anti-mutant extremists, and has nothing to do with her biofamily.

Description: A slender young woman made of metal?  A robot built with a feminine human form?  Some kind of iron golem?  It isn't immediately clear.  Her voice is surprisingly deep with mechanical overtones, which just further confuses the issue of just what she is.

Gender: Female            Age: 20           Height: 5'4"            Eyes: Gunmetal Blue

Hair: None                  Skin: Dull Metallic Gray             Build: Boyish

Archetype:  Paragon

Stress Capacity:  6

Power Traits: 

Armored 1 - Reduce all damage dealt to you by one, to a minimum of one.

Flight 1 - You can fly, moving near the speed of sound at your peak.  It takes two actions to reach top speed.

Super-Speed 1 - On any turn in which you move, you count as having taken an Evade action.

Super-Strength 1 - You gain Advantage when rolling to do something with brute force.  Your Melee attacks deal one extra damage.

Power Origin: Mutant

Weakness: 

Electricity - Her biometallic form is an efficient electrical conductor, causing great pain even when she resists actual physical injury.  Needs to be careful around power lines when flying.

Trained Weapons (roll 2d6): Unarmed                                    

Mastered Weapons (roll 3d6): Punches

Tactics

Meteoric is a speedy flying brick who prefers to keep moving during a fight rather than get into toe-to-toe slugfests.  She's a threat to other flyers who rely on ranged attack and distance to stay safe, although she can also do flyby attacks on ground targets pretty effectively.  Her great strength lets her easily carry teammates when needed, and helps with evacuating civilians from a battle zone. 

Advancements

She's still young and growing into her full abilities, so climbing any of her four power trees is a good start.  Armor 2 is probably the first thing to take, followed by Super-Speed 2 and Flight 2.  After that it's a tossup which to improve next, but getting all of them to tier 3 can't hurt.  After that some Immunities or regular traits to fit campaign events would be helpful and on-theme.

___________________________________________________________________________

Mister Corundum

"Mister Corundum" is an alien refugee on Earth, rescued from a group of spacefaring slave traders when they attempted to raid Jersey City a few years back.  His real name is mostly outside of human hearing range, hence the "nickname" he's adopted.  While he's really a pretty average Tamfranian citizen, his natural advantages put him on par with many supers, so he's volunteered to join a small-time hero team while he waits for an opportunity to get back off world.  As a member of a long-lived species he figures he can spare a few decades playing do-gooder for these frail aliens,  It's a fair repayment for being saved from a one-way trip to the spice mines or galactic gladiatoral arenas.

Corundum is frequently bemused by Earth customs, and asks a lot of awkward questions about everything from biology to politics.  Fortunately he's a good-natured sort and rarely causes lasting offense.  He has faced some anti-xeno bigotry already and there's probably more to come, but it hasn't made him cynical yet.

Description: A tall humanoid figure made of blue crystals with pink and purple highlights.  Much broader across the shoulders than humans, has a top-heavy look with a microcephalic head.  His voice is high pitched and sounds like chimes.  If it wasn't already obvious that he's not a Terran native, the six-digited hands and three-taloned feet should make it clear.

Gender: What's That?            Age: 48            Height: 6'4"            Eyes: Dark Purple

Hair: Spikes Of White Crystal        Skin: Sapphire Crystal              Build: Multi-Faceted

Archetype:  Mastermind

Stress Capacity:  5

Power Traits: 

Armor 2 - Reduce all damage dealt to you by two, to a minimum of zero. 

Leadership - As an action, choose two of your allies.  They gain Advantage on their next roll.

Super-Strength 1 - You gain Advantage when rolling to do something with brute force.  Your Melee attacks deal one extra damage. 

Power Origin: Alien

Weakness: 

No Head For Heights - Seriously, he gets dizzy on a stepladder, not that most of them can support his weight anyway.  He stays well away from windows in skyscrapers, hates making rooftop patrols, and really dislikes flying.  The fact that he'd probably hurt the ground more than himself if he fell off a ten-story building doesn't matter, this is an irrational fear of his.

Trained Weapons (roll 2d6): Unarmed                                     

Mastered Weapons (roll 3d6): Bludgeoning Fists

Tactics

Mister Corundum is fairly average specimen of his species, which means he's inhumanly strong, fantastically tough if a little brittle, and very quick thinking thanks to his "brain" being a lattice of crystalline circuitry.  His natural advantages make him a decent brawler even by superhero standards, but he'll often skip trading punches to use Leadership on his allies.  If he runs into something as durable as he is he'll resort to Focusing and then grabbing something big and heavy to flail away with just to get some damage in.

Advancements

Earth's magnetic field, sunlight and atmosphere will supercharge his Tamfranian metabolism over time, so growing into Armor 3, Super-Strength 3, various Immunities, Regeneration 1, Super-Senses 1, Teleportation 1, Energy Control/Time and Elemental Control/Earth are all possibilities.  Go wild, he's an alien with a strange physiology.  Adding Eidetic Memory, Resolute and Tough as normal traits would also be reasonable.

___________________________________________________________________________

Scintillator

Asterope Jones is new to the hero scene, having begun developing her energy-based powers at age 18.  She spent the last four years growing into them under the aegis of a federal training program for young supers that also offered educational support in exchange for a tour of duty with a sponsored hero team.  Asterope had planned to go into community services and social activism after college anyway, but this seems like it might be an even better path for her and it's saving a fortune in student loans.  The idea of it being dangerous hasn't fully sunk in yet, and maybe it never will.  She's growing in power daily and the examiners who tried to categorize her were uncertain what her peak levels might turn out to be.  Her power source is definitely magical in nature, but it seems to be some kind of recessive heritage thing rather than the usual spell-and-scroll stuff, which Asterope has zero talent for.  Maybe there was a storm deity in her family tree or something?  She likes that idea.

To date her only real complaint is her supranym, which wasn't her first choice.  She'd planned to use her own first name (which is really on point for her power set) only to be informed that another US super was already using it - and her real name was Karen, of all things.  So unfair.  Scintillator isn't bad and sounds pretty catchy, but she still stumbles over it sometimes and tends to slip and use Asterope when she's not concentrating.  To put it mildly, she doesn't have a secret identity, and really isn't cut out for it.

Description: A lean, muscular young woman dressed in a snug red sleeveless bodysuit, white trunks and ankle boots, and a short white vest.  Her eyes literally give off sparks and she's accompanied by a faint smell of ozone.  She has a strong, clear voice with a faint Brooklyn accent, although you can sometimes hear an electrical buzz underlying it.

Gender: Female            Age: 21            Height: 5'8"            Eyes: Sparking White

Hair: Shaved Scalp                 Skin: Mahogany                    Build: Extremely Fit

Archetype:  Striker

Stress Capacity:  7

Power Traits: 

Energy Control/Electricity 2 - As an action you can generate a shock that deals one damage to any target you can touch.  This damage can be transferred to additional targets through conductive material at the GM's discretion.  As an action you can make a Ranged Blast Attack that deals one damage to up to three targets and never needs to be reloaded.  

Energy Control/Light 1 - As an action you can generate a brilliant flash of light.  Anyone who can see you must make a Save Test.  If they fail, they suffer Disadvantage on their next Action if it relies on vision in any way.

Powerful Blows - The damage you deal cannot be reduced below one.

Power Origin: Magical 

Weakness: 

Getting Soaked With Water - Whether she's actually immersed or just wet to the bone, she suffers painful feedback that seriously handicaps her until she dries out.  Habitually keeps an eye on weather forecasts and carries an umbrella when expecting rain, sometimes has a tote full of towels along for missions.

Trained Weapons (roll 2d6): Ranged                                       

Mastered Weapons (roll 3d6): Blast Attacks

Tactics

Scintillator is a ranged specialist and does her best to avoid getting in punch-ups, although she can hand out some nasty electrical shocks if hard pressed.  Doesn't even have to roll to hit if she's being grappled, and she'll happily use conductive materials to hit multiple targets that way.  For some reason she seems to wind up getting in fights near fountains, puddles, streams and swimming pools far more often than she'd like, so she might as well take advantage of that.  She prefers to blast away at multiple targets with her lightning powers, using her blinding flash trick to handicap return fire.  Her team has a codeword (usually "tunafish!" for obscure reasons) they use to call for a flash, and they know enough to look away from her or close their eyes when they hear it.  She's not especially tough but does deal with multiple foes well, and as a Striker she can push a little damage through even the most potent defenses. 

Advancements

Asterope is a young super whose powers are still growing, and her early choices are mostly between which of her two Energy Control "trees" to finish out and in what order.  Going with Electricity 3 would get her a damage two zap and that handy Teleportation power right away, but Light 2 would get her laser death rays for similar damage and set her up to get Light 3 next, which would give her Flight, Healing, and even better lasers as her highest damage attack option.  After working those out, Super-Senses/Vision would give her good insurance against visual camouflage and blinding effects.  Taking Resolute and the Absorption tree would be a good combo that plays into her overall power set, or she might expand her Energy Control into the Time tree as well.  She might also pick up Phasing and Regeneration as she gains greater control over her energized physical form.  Charismatic, Educated, and Insightful would all fit her personality and goals nicely.  And of course Tough and extra Stress Capacity are always helpful for veteran heroes, which she'll be someday if she survives.

___________________________________________________________________________


Talkin' Sticks, Incanting Staves and the Founding of the Silent College

The Founding of the Silent College The twenty-year reign of Arch-Prelate Pavuul the Cruel was marked by a rising tide of intolerance and sav...