Posting a pair of connected heroes, the former of which I've used as my PC in a couple of Silver Age one-offs and one story arc in the early Bronze Age (which wound up spawning Val at the end of it) and as a loaner hero for several other new players who wanted to try the game. The latter has been an NPC (with a much-abbreviated lieutenant-style writeup) in time-travel and cosmic adventures and a loaner hero for a various of different guest players in more modern settings. There's a Kid Maximum waiting in the wings that I may get to use someday, but he can wait till he gets some actual table time.
Of the three I think I like Val best, and it's been neat seeing how multiple different people have roleplayed her over wildly different time periods in-game. Each of them has contributed to her backstory and I expect her to continue to grow over time. Building a character through the choices of several "actors" has been a nifty creative experiment.
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Name: Mister Maximum
Origin: Joe Smith was an unhappy 4F draft reject back in 1942 when he crossed paths with a cell of Fifth Columnists. The spies had planned to use an occult ritual to sabotage the aircraft factory he was working at. Joe not only stopped them, exposure to the weird energies they'd unleashed granted him amazing superhuman powers that lead to him fighting both at home and abroad for the rest of the War. During the 50s he fought crime, commies, and supervillains alike as Mister Maximum. By the late 60s he was starting to feel out of touch with the society around him, complicated by the fact his powers had slowed his aging to a crawl while his friends and family were still aging normally.
Around the same time another supernatural encounter lead to his powers being accidentally transferred to a young woman, and he decided to retire and try to reconnect to the America he'd fought to protect for years while she carried on as Sister Maximum. To his surprise his powers eventually returned spontaneously. While he stayed largely inactive for years, the departure of his protege on a mission to deep space lead him to don the cape and cowl again. Mister Maximum is back, let evil-doers beware!
Description: Tall, athletically built man in a medium red bodysuit with navy blue utility belt, cuffed boots and gloves. He wears a white single-piece cape & cowl that conceals everything but his mouth and eyes. He has a deep voice and tends towards a bombastic style of speech.
Gender: Male Age: Looks Late-Forties Height: 6'2" Eyes: Blue
Hair: Black, Starting To Go Gray Skin: Caucasian Build: Broad-Shouldered
Background: Retired Power Source: Supernatural Archetype: Physical Powerhouse
Personality: Natural Leader Health (G/Y/R): 36/27/13 (or 32+1d8)
Powers: Strength d12, Deduction d10, Flight d6, Size-Changing d6, Telepathy d6
Qualities: Criminal Underworld Info d10, Fitness d10, Imposing d10, Leadership d10, Golden Age Icon d8
Status: Green (36-28) - d6 / Yellow (27-14) - d8 / Red (13-1) - d12
Abilities:
Green
Get Their Attention (A) Attack using Fitness. The target of that Attack must take an Attack action against you on its next turn if possible.
Principle of Detachment (A) Overcome a challenge related to duress or fear. Use your Max die. You and your allies each gain a Hero Point. Minor twist: Who have you just alienated with your distant behavior. Major twist: How have you withdrawn from the current situation to cope? RP: You are detached from emotional situations and always keep your cool.
Principle of Strength (A) Overcome a challenge using brute force. Use your Max die. You and your allies gain each gain a Hero Point. Minor twist: What just broke? Major twist: Who just broke? RP: You do not need to roll to perform mundane feats of great strength.
Smash! (A) Attack using Strength. Use your Max die.
Yellow
Mightiest Of All (A) Boost yourself using Strength. Use your Max die. This bonus is persistent and exclusive.
Organized Effort (A) Boost using Leadership. Apply the bonus to all hero Attack and Overcome actions until the start of your next turn.
Quick Save (R) When a nearby ally would take damage, Defend that ally by rolling your single status die, then move them elsewhere in the same scene.
Red
Fight Harder (I) When you use an ability action, you may also perform any one basic action using your Mid die.
Ready For Anything (A) Defend against all Attacks against you until the beginning of you next turn using Telepathy. Use your Max + Mid dice.
Out
Inspired Ally (A) Boost an ally using single Leadership die.
Powers
Mister Maximum has spent 80 years watching the evolution of the supers community and knows his stuff pretty well. He's naturally inclined towards taking a leadership role, but also knows how to be a good team player and has lots of experience cooperating with the authorities. His powers are pretty straightforward - incredible strength, reliable if not speedy flight, the ability to grow to about twice his normal size if need be (and hypothetically shrink to six inches or so, although it makes him feel odd), plus modest telepathy that he learned from a teammate way back in 1948. He's surprisingly good at identifying and solving problems quickly and knows how to organize people even in emergencies. Decades of experience have taught him how to cow lawbreakers and given him an encyclopedic knowledge to both mundane and powered criminals and the subculture they operate in.
Tactics
Hit them hard with Smash! If an enemy is being a problem by trying something tricky, Get Their Attention and force them to attack you instead fleeing or carrying some dastardly scheme. Use your great strength and fearlessness to overcome problems whenever you can. When things start getting serious, take a moment to show them you're the Mightiest of Them All, then concentrate on helping your team make an Organized Effort while making a Quick Save of anyone who looks like they're in trouble. In really dire straits you'll be Ready For Anything while still showing that you can Fight Harder than ever.
Outside of an action scene, Mister Maximum is a pretty good amateur detective and trouble-shooter. He carries himself with authority and can stare down just about anyone, and his long life has made given him a wealth of practical life experience. He isn't particularly good at connecting with people outside of his heroic identity though, and he's lacking in formal education. He's also prone to recounting long stories of days gone by, and has a nasty (albeit unconscious) tendency to condescend to younger folks until they earn his respect. Joe's kept in touch with things pretty well for a 98 year old and isn't as lost in his past as the few "Greatest Gen" survivors generally are.
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Name: Sister Maximum
Origin: Valkyrie ("Val") Johnson was just 19 years old when she got mixed up in a brawl between the local super-team and a band of occultists who were attempting to banish the White House (and President Nixon) to the Ninth Dimension. When a cultist attempted to use her as an impromptu hostage she gave him a boot to the head for his trouble. One of the supers swept down just in time to block a hex-bolt aimed at the girl by another cult member, but the magic ran wild and he found himself powerless while Val was suddenly bursting with supernatural might. Unfazed, she proceeded to rescue her rescuer and helped subdue the rest of the baddies.
When it became clear after the fight that her "Maximum" powers couldn't be switched back she sat down for a long talk with the former Mister Maximum and the rest of his super-team. By the end of it America had a new superhero, and Sister Maximum was born. She spent the 70s and 80s fighting bigotry, injustice and intolerance as often as supervillains and alien invaders. In the 90s and early 2000s she founded several groups of like-minded supers who were dedicated to addressing social ills as well as crime and exotic threats. This led to claims that her groups were "politicizing" the hero community, and several of the teams broke up under pressure from the reactionary part of the hero community and the general public.
That, and an encounter with extraterrestrial refugees in the 2010's led her to believe that she'd been too narrow in her goals. American society had many injustices, but so did the wider world, and beyond that the galaxy. Her old mentor Mister Maximum had regained his powers almost a decade earlier, and after consulting with him she made the decision to leave Earth in 2022, setting off with the xeno refugees to help them find a new and safer home. Sister Maximum has gone to the stars!
Description: Attractive, cheerful looking young woman wearing a denim vest, a pair of blue denim shorts, a red tee shirt with a white peace symbol front, and red cuffed ankle boots and fingerless gloves. Has a definite retro vibe to her look, including a truly fantastic afro and big golden star earrings. When adventuring in space she wears an oxygen-generating bubble helmet that just barely accommodates her hairdo.
Gender: Female Age: Looks Early Twenties Height: 5'8" Eyes: Brown
Hair: Black Skin: Medium Brown Build: Athletic
Background: Dynasty Power Source: Supernatural Archetype: Physical Powerhouse
Personality: Alluring Health (G/Y/R): 34/25/12
Powers: Strength d10, Intuition d10, Telepathy d8, Flight d6, Size-Changing d6
Qualities: Fitness d10, Insight d10, Persuasion d10, Acrobatics d8, Activist Flower Child d8
Status: Green (34-26) - d6 / Yellow (25-13) - d8 / Red (12-1) - d12
Abilities:
Green
In Your Face (A) Attack using Fitness. The target of that Attack must take an Attack action against you on its next turn if possible.
Principle of Liberty (A) Overcome in a situation where you are restricted or bound. Use your Max die. You and your allies each gain a Hero Point. Minor twist: How do you become temporarily trapped? Major twist: How have you become a prisoner yourself? RP: You can never truly be mentally restrained.
Principle of Strength (A) Overcome a challenge using brute force. Use your Max die. You and your allies gain each gain a Hero Point. Minor twist: What just broke? Major twist: Who just broke? RP: You do not need to roll to perform mundane feats of great strength.
Knockout Blow (A) Attack using Strength. Use your Max die.
Yellow
Strong Female Protagonist (A) Boost yourself using Strength. Use your Max die. This bonus is persistent and exclusive.
The Moment Is Now (A) Boost using Intuition. Apply the bonus to all hero Attack and Overcome actions until the start of your next turn.
Think Positive (A) Boost an ally using Telepathy. You and nearby heroes in the Yellow or Red zones Recover Health equal to your Min die.
Red
Golden Comeback (I) Hinder yourself using Size-Changing. Use your Min die. Recover Health equal to your Max + Min dice.
Saw It Coming (R) When an opponent Attacks, you may become the target of that Attack and Defend yourself by rolling your single status die.
Out
Follow Your Instincts (A) Boost an ally using your single Intuition die.
Powers
Sister Maximum has very similar abilities to the man she inherited her powers from. She's not quite as impossibly strong but much better at telepathy and has a sense of intuition that borders on prescience. Like him, she can fly and alter her size from over ten feet tall to as little as four inches - and she's a lot more comfortable with size alterations than he is. She's also extremely fit and nimble, and has a superhuman knack for reading people and convincing them to listen to what she has to say.
Tactics
Val prefers to try talking things out before using force, but she's not shy about getting in a brawl either. She relies on sheer strength to deliver a Knockout Blow, and likes to get In Your Face against evasive enemies. She relies on brute strength to overcome most obstacles but is remarkably good at wriggling free of any restraints she can't simply break through. As a fight progresses she'll show that she's truly a Strong Female Protagonist, which makes her telepathic Think Positive ability much more effective. When she intuits that The Moment Is Now she can make all her allies' efforts much more effective as well. In the ultimate extremes she's got a great defensive reaction in Saw It Coming that she'll follow up with Golden Comeback to do a huge heal on herself.
In social scenes, she has a superhuman knack for reading people and convincing them to listen to what she has to say. She's also agile and in great physical shape, and generally comes across as a sincere and likeable person. Her powers have largely stopped her aging, and she looks more like a young 20-something than a 72 year old. Val is nostalgic about her youthful hippy days and often dresses the part, but she's also much more up to date about modern youth culture than any Boomer has a right to be. Despite that, her tastes definitely run toward the retro side of things even when she's bopping around interstellar space.
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