Sunday, September 18, 2022

Downfall, Legendary Hero-killer

This guy's a one of relatively few mercenary villains willing to take killing contracts on other supers, and he's legitimately a threat even to a hero with a team to back them up.  Maybe even especially to teams - he's gotten a little too accustomed to fighting multiple opponents and has lost a bit of his edge in one-on-one confrontations.

Downfall

Marco Kull was once a minor criminal who specialized in smuggling restricted technologies - super-tech, alien artifacts, and weird science gadgets of all kinds.  He gained his remarkable powers when accidentally exposed to strange cosmic energies from a damaged mechanism during a superhero team's raid on one of his operations.  Panicking, he attacked the heroes with his newfound abilities, defeating all of them with ease, killing three of the four and badly injuring the survivor in the process.

Saddled with a reputation for being a hero-killer, Kull opted to lean into it.  As Downfall he's gone on to become a much-feared mercenary villain, willing and well-equipped to take jobs to eliminate other supers, even those who operate in teams.  He has tremendous gravity-manipulation powers capable of crushing foes and deflecting attacks with glowing energy constructs, as well as inhuman strength and a combination of flight and phasing abilities that make him very hard to catch - or avoid, when he's got a contract on you.  His years of experience have also made him alarmingly good at tracking down his targets, even those with secret identities and hidden headquarters.  Not all his jobs involve killing, but his willingness to tackle that kind of work makes him stand out among his fellow super-thugs.

Description: When deliberately powered down he appears to be a powerfully-built Caucasian male with unremarkable features.  With his powers active, he's nothing but a man-shaped void of shadows, seemingly filled with colorful stars and nebulae.  Think Silver Surfer if he was jet black and jammed full of Kirby-space.  

Gender: Male          Age: 35         Height: 5'11"          Eyes: Glossy Black

Hair: Bald           Skin: Glossy Black, Full of Stars & Nebulae         Build: Muscular

Approach:  Prideful                  Archetype:  Guerrilla

Health:  45 + (5 x H)

Powers: Cosmic d10, Flight d10, Strength d10, Intangibility d8

Qualities: Close Combat d10, Ranged Combat d10, Investigation d8, Legendary Hero-killer d8, Stealth d8

Status: # of Opponents Engaged 0-1 - d6 / 2-3 - d8 / 4+ - d10

Abilities:

Implacable (I) Reduce all damage dealt to you by 2.

Singular Focus (A) Attack one target using Cosmic.  Use your Max + Min dice.  Defend yourself against all Attacks from anyone but the target until the start of your next turn with your Mid die.

Utter Contempt (I) At the start of your turn, gain a bonus equal to the number of opponents that have Attacked you since your last turn.

Your Friends Can't Save You (I) If you are outnumbered by nearby opponents, reduce all damage dealt to you by 2.

Upgrades & Masteries (optional):

Group Fighter (I) +20 Health.  When you take an action that lets you make an Attack, also Attack with your Mid die.

Master Mercenary (I) If you have a contract for a specific task, automatically succeed at an Overcome when your payment is at stake.

Tactics

Downfall prefers to deal with one enemy at a time using Singular Focus to remorselessly crush his target using his gravity manipulation powers while being protected against other opponents.  Implacable makes him hard to hurt, and Your Friends Can't Save You ramps that durability up a lot when outnumbered.  Any bonus he gains from Utter Contempt will be channeled into further increasing his defenses by bumping up his Mid die.

With his upgrade he further increases his damage output, and he'll concentrate the extra Attack on his main target till they drop.  His mastery makes good and certain he gets his paycheck at the end of a job.


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