This villain is a narrowly focused but powerful telepath who specializes in imposing painful and long-lasting mental restraints on his victims. He can make a good teammate for more physically-oriented villains or work on his own with various minions and lieutenants, most of whom will be mentally coerced into serving his plans.
Headache
Brian Thomas Cunningham joined the US army following a lifetime in foster care and a school experience full of social isolation and poor grades. He continued to struggle to fit in once in the service, and his military career was marked with multiple disciplinary offenses and friction with his superiors and squad mates. That all ended when his psionic powers manifested under stress. Mind-reading quickly "proved" how justified his lifelong contempt for others had been and he set off on the path of the antisocial supervillain without a qualm.
As Headache, Cunningham is utterly convinced of his own superiority and despises the hypocrisy he sees in others, especially so-called heroes. He enjoys crippling people with psychic agony and loves to toy with his victims rather than finishing them off. He's not a good team player when it comes to other villains but his powers are strong enough that he's often sought out for temporary alliances, at least by those who haven't worked with him before. Even villains with similar worldviews like Judas Progenitor aren't likely to want to share his company for long. Headache is easily motivated by the opportunity to torment do-gooders of all types, and is particularly hostile toward government and religious authorities. Loot isn't much of a draw for him, since he casually employs psychic coercion to get anything money could buy him, but the prospect of further enhancing his already remarkable powers will get his attention.
Description: A thin younger man with a prominent aquiline nose and long brown hair that stands on end when he's using his powers. He dresses in casual Western clothing most of the time, but when teaming up with other villains he adopts a loose-fitting dark blue paramilitary uniform with black combat boots and webbing and red epaulets and piping. He dislikes the sound of his own alto voice and prefers to communicate telepathically without any concern for the mental privacy of others.
Gender: Male Age: 20 Height: 5'9" Eyes: Bloodshot Brown
Hair: Light Brown Skin: Swarthy Build: Slender
Approach: Focused Archetype: Inhibitor
Health: 35 + (5 x H)
Powers: Telepathy d12, Telekinesis d8
Qualities: Imposing d10, Close Combat d8, Megalomaniacal Mentalist d8
Status: (# of heroes with penalties) 0 - d6 / 1-2 - d8 / 3+ - d10
Abilities:
Debris Field (A) Defend yourself using Telekinesis. This Defend lasts until your next turn. If an Attack deals more damage than the value of the Defend, end this Defend and Attack your Attacker using the value of the Defend.
Mental Reversal (R) Defend against an Attack that only targets you by rolling your single Telepathy die. Boost yourself by using the amount of damage reduced.
Mind Binder (A) Hinder using Telepathy. This penalty is persistent and exclusive. As long as this penalty is in play, reduce damage dealt to you by 1 and whenever you are dealt damage, the target of this penalty takes 1 irreducible damage.
Neural Burn (A) Hinder one target using Telepathy. Use your Max die. Attack that target using your Mid die.
Psychic Burden (A) Hinder using Telepathy. Use your Max + Mid dice, or use your Max die and make the penalty persistent and exclusive.
Upgrades & Masteries (optional):
Quality Upgrade (I) +20 Health. All your quality dice except Megalomaniacal Mentalist increase in size by 1 step (max d12).
Master of Superiority (I) As long as you are manifesting an effect related to a power you have at d12, automatically succeed at an Overcome involving usage of those powers.
Tactics
Headache relies on his potent Telepathy for offense, usually pairing it with Imposing during combat. If he has to do something more subtle than inflicting crippling mental pressure he has to resort to Megalomaniacal Mentalist instead. His powers are potent but rather narrow. During a fight he'll spread persistent penalties from Mind Binder around as many targets as possible to amp up his defenses and deal some damage whenever he's attacked. Mental Reversal gives him a powerful defensive reaction and he'll use the bonus it creates selectively to bump up penalties or enhance his next reaction in a feedback loop. If a hero sheds a Mind Binder penalty he'll either re-apply it or target them with an even larger penalty from Psychic Burden. If all heroes have a penalty from him he may stack further Mind Binder penalties (which are exclusive, but the damage effects stack just fine) on them, shift to using Neural Burn to inflict some damage (and still more penalties) directly, or put up a Debris Field to protect himself if he's facing a real threat. Because of the way his status die works he actually prefers to leave 3+ heroes in the fight (albeit crushed under his penalties) rather than finish them off one at a time, which can lead to friction with other villains.
His upgrade gives him a very strong die pool on his main abilities, and his mastery just makes all those penalties he puts out with that d12 Telepathy work even better for him.
Note that while he lacks actual mobility powers and relies mostly on Telepathy, his Telekinesis is powerful enough to support impromptu floating platforms, levitate a getaway car, or otherwise offer him ways to avoid ground-bound opponents if need be. Only a dislike for heights keeps his feet on the ground as much as they are.
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