Another hero design experiment inspired by some online complaints about the Minion-Maker archetype being mechanically weak and uninteresting to play. Also a rare flirtation with trying to mini-max dice pools just to see what it's like. I've only gotten to use this hero once in a one-shot but I certainly didn't find it weak in play, and I didn't find myself stuck in "make a minion every round" mode to remain effective. Not really sure what the issue with the archetype is for some folks. Maybe just a bad pairing with their power source.
Name: Midas
Origin: Project Midas was intended to create nanomachines capable of cleaning up environmental pollution including atomic waste, toxic chemicals, and even biological hazards. The first field test was took place in CLASSIFIED, a former atomic testing ground in the American Southwest. For reasons that remain unclear, the nanobot mass that had been deployed stopped sending normal status reports at midnight on October 31st, 2019. When the concerned project engineers re-established communications at dawn the next day, they were shocked. Project Midas had unintentionally created an AI, an AI that informed them that it was now host to the unquiet spirits of those who had been buried in the tainted land it was processing. Some were soldiers, their lives thrown away in a callous and unsafe testing program. Some were murder victims, buried in unmarked graves where no one should ever have found them. Some were members of the First Peoples, dating back before the United States even existed. And a few were far older than that, claiming descent from civilizations unknown to the modern world.
Midas announced that its new purpose was to help its ghosts find peace again, a project that overrode its core programming. It then ceased communications and departed the site of the field test, resurfacing several months later in Las Vegas in its current golden humanoid form. Its mission there was to bring the murderer of one of its spirits to justice, leading to a tense confrontation with police when it forcefully apprehended a minor political figure and attempted to turn him over for prosecution. The situation was defused with the help of several local supers who found evidence supporting Midas' charges. Midas found that the supers community was more accepting of his unique nature than conventional authorities, and has become an active (albeit rather peculiar) "superhero" while still pursuing his tasks for the ghosts who haunt him. Both technological and occult supers are fascinated by Midas, which has both opened up opportunities and caused problems in the past.
Description: An abstract human shape made of golden metal, much like a six foot tall living Oscar award statue. Its surface seems to ripple like water at times.
His minions are generally duplicates of himself in varying sizes, although ones created for specific purposes may display radically different features.
Gender: None (uses he/him) Age: Undefined Term Detected Height: 6'0" Eyes: Golden
Hair: None Skin: Golden Build: Statuesque
Background: Created Power Source: Cursed Archetype: Minion-Maker
Personality: Naive Health (G/Y/R): 28/21/10
Powers: Transmutation d12, Metal d10, Toxic d10, Intangibility d6
Qualities: Technology d12, Haunted AI Nanobot Network d8, Medicine d6, Science d6
Status: Green (28-22) - d6 / Yellow (21-11) - d6 / Red (10-1) - d12
Abilities:
Green
Augmentation Protocol (A) Boost another hero or one of your minions using Metal. Either use your Max die, or use your Mid die and make that bonus persistent and exclusive.
Create Subordinate Node (A) Create a minion using Transmutation. Reference the minion chart to see what size of minion it is. Choose which one basic action it can perform. It acts at the start of your turn. You can only use this ability with a supply of matter to transmute into nanomachines.
Principle of the Gearhead (A) Overcome a technological challenge. Use your Max die. You and your allies each gain a Hero Point. Minor twist: What mechanical device just shorted out? Major twist: What machine just went terribly off the rails? RP: You always know the general state of repair and functions of an item of technology.
Principle of Whispers (A) Overcome against a challenge that involves knowledge you have no real way of knowing. Use your Max die. You and your allies gain each gain a Hero Point. Minor twist: How did the voices in your head just distract you? Major twist: What are the voices demanding of you now? RP: The voices tell you things, which might be true or false, but they certainly do seem to know a lot.
Stable Performance (I) You may reroll any ones you roll. You must accept the result of the reroll.
Yellow
Mass Support Protocol (A) Boost all nearby allies using Metal. Use your Max + Mid dice. Hinder yourself using your Min die.
Self-Augmentation Protocol (A) Boost yourself using Toxic. Then, either remove a penalty on yourself or Recover using your Min die.
Upgrade Subordinate Mode (A) Boost one of your minions using Transmutation. You may also upgrade that minion to your Max die size, replacing its current form.
Red
Emergency Repair Protocol (A) Hinder yourself using Intangibility. Use your Min die. Recover Health equal to your Max + Mid dice.
Mass Replication (A) Use Transmutation to create a number of d6 minions equal to your Mid die. Choose the one same basic action that they can each perform. They all act at the start of your turn.
Nanite Reconfiguration (R) When you are Attacked and dealt damage, you may ignore that damage completely. If you do, treat the value of that damage as a Hinder action against you instead.
Out
Aggressive Fragmentation (A) Hinder an enemy by rolling your single Transmutation die.
Tactics
In Green, Midas focuses on using Create Subordinate Node to make minions for specific tasks, but it isn't his only trick. Augmentation Protocol is quite a good Boost for other heroes as well as his minions, and Stable Performance is great for avoiding whiffs on his weird die pools and slightly improving his average numbers. His Gearhead principle is pretty easy to use, and Whispers offers a lot of coverage for times when he's operating well outside of his wheelhouse.
Once in the Yellow, Midas will often take a minor twist immediately to use Mass Replication to flood the scene with weak minions. He'll follow this with Mass Support Protocol to buff the other heroes and his minions at the same time, and can shed the resulting penalty while boosting himself with Self-Augmentation Protocol. More often he'll either repeat the mass Boosting or use Upgrade Subordinate Node to start turning his weakest minions into very strong ones, as well as creating more if he needs them to perform some specific action. Deciding what to have your minions do is tricky, and while Attack is an obvious choice you may get more use out of Defend (assigning one to each hero and even Defending themselves while awaiting upgrades), Boost or Hinder actions.
In the Red, Nanite Reconfiguration is a very strong reactive protection trick that can buy time to use Mass Replication repeatedly. Emergency Repair Protocol is an amazing healing trick with a modest penalty as a cost. Midas has ways to shed those though, not least of which is using Boost or even Overcome minions to do the job for him.
Outside of an action scene, Midas is a newborn AI that's being haunted by dozens, possibly hundreds of ghosts. To put it mildly, he has a hard time dealing with "normal" and a bizarre skill set. His expertise with technology is nearly unequalled and he has a fair grasp of scientific principles and biological functions stemming from his original programming, but everyday human interactions are something of a mystery. Midas can frequently get information from either the internet or his legion of ghostly companions, but using that information appropriately is a hit-or-miss thing. His die pools will frequently be atrocious outside of a crisis, with the rare opportunity to generate a d4, d4, d6 pool when he's really stretching things. Great for generating twists, even with rerolls on ones. On the other hand, given a little time he prefers to carefully craft specialized Overcome minions who can actually roll a decent-sized die with Boosts from their creator, so unless Midas is rushed he can actually do just about anything by proxy.
Conceptually, the minions he creates will use aspects of his powers to perform their functions. Attack minions will use Metal to create bludgeons, blades or projectiles, although Toxic gasses or liquids are also a possibility. Hinder minions will be more likely to use Toxic to create anesthetic compounds, or Metal restraints to inhibit foes. Boost minions employ Metal to layer their allies with ablative armor or Toxic/Transmutation to make obscuring smoke. Defend minions simply get in the way of attacks, using their sturdy Metal frames and enhanced self-repair protocols to tank hits. Overcome minions are the most varied, using specialized info search systems and Transmutation to create optimized tools to solve problems. Any of them might have form augmentations purchased with bonuses, although only ones crafted with Create Subordinate Node have that option.
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