Actually got to play in a new group the other day and whipped this oddball hero up for the game, which will hopefully be an ongoing thing. The three new players seemed to enjoy the game, and the GM and my fellow vet were both open to making the one-shot into a campaign. I may have to make some modifications to this character for long-term play - he was intended to be a sort of one-and-done guest hero when I made him - but I'm rather enjoying the "fish out of water" roleplaying possibilities so far and the group is desperately short on someone to handle "mystic BS" problems.
"Werelock" is a portmanteau of "werewolf warlock" of course.
Name: Storm Howler
Origin: Ivan Lupescu is native to the Transylvanian region of Eastern Europe in the mid-1400s, where he's spent more than a decade as a wandering sellsword, as well as an occasional monster hunter. He contracted lycanthropy at the age of 16 while defending a wise woman from a "rabid wolf" and she taught him her style of natural magic to help him control his changes. Since then he's learned a number of new charms, hexes and witcheries during his wanderings throughout the Balkans, as well earning a reputation as a fierce fighter and skilled swordsman. Like many residents of the area he's strongly opposed to the Ottoman expansion in the region since the fall of Constantinople, earning some small notoriety as a mercenary fighting against them.
Very little of which matters since he stumbled through a magical portal into 2023 and found himself enmeshed in modern-day superhero shenanigans. His grasp of 21st century technology and social norms is pretty shaky, and he's still convinced that he's stuck in a strange otherworldly realm rather than his own distant future. But he does recognize villainy when he sees it, and he's hoping one of the strange, brightly dressed wizards he fights evil alongside can show him the way home someday. If not - well, he's an adaptable sort.
Description: Rangy man with narrow, wolfish facial features, dressed in worn, travel-stained clothing and a dark green hooded cloak that make him look like a refugee from a fantasy LARP. The sheathed sword and dagger at his belt definitely aren't foam replicas, though. When he shapeshifts to wolf form his gear and clothing vanish into hammerspace, although he retains his patched woolen pants as a wolfman. Has a prominent scar from some kind of firearm on his flank as a wolf, which is covered up by clothing normally. He caught a grazing hit in the butt from a silver bullet a few years back and it never healed right. His voice is surprisingly deep for his frame and has a nebulous Eastern European accent.
Gender: Male Age: Late Twenties Height: 5'10" Eyes: Gray
Hair: Black, Graying Skin: Weather-Beaten Build: Lean & Muscular
Background: Anachronistic Power Source: Nature Archetype: Sorcerer
Personality: Lone Wolf Health (G/Y/R): 28/21/10
Powers: Weather d10, Animal Control d8, Strength d8, Suggestion d8, Shapeshifting d6
Qualities: Close Combat d10, Magical Lore d10, Stealth d8, 15th Century Slavic Mercenary & Monster Hunter d8
Status: Green d8, Yellow d8, Red d8
Abilities:
Green
Biting Wind (A) Attack using Weather. Use your Max die.
Demanding Hex (A) Hinder using Suggestion. Use your Max die. If you roll doubles, also Attack using your Mid die.
Howling Storm (A) Attack multiple targets using Weather. Use your Min die.
Principle of Magic (A) Overcome against a mystical force. Use your Max die. You and your allies each gain a Hero Point. Minor twist: What weird curse is now following you around? Major twist: What mystical backlash has changed your life? RP: You are attuned to an otherworldly force and can feel the mystical energies of the area.
Principle of the Time Traveler (A) Overcome a problem using knowledge from 15th century Eastern Europe. Use your Max die. You and your allies gain each gain a Hero Point. Minor twist: What detail of the current era did you not previously know about? Major twist: What effects are happening as you discorporate in time? RP: You are far from your own time and are often unsure how to act in this time. You have an innate sense for when time is not quite right in the era you're in.
Yellow
Drive To Destruction (A) Destroy one d6 or d8 minion. Roll that minion's die as an Attack against another target.
Taste of Triumph (R) When you defeat a minion, roll that minion's die. Use that roll to Boost yourself. The bonus created must be used on your next action.
Wild Fury (A) Attack one target using Strength. Use your Max + Min dice. Then Boost yourself and the target using your Mid die.
Red
Blood Curses (I) Whenever you Attack a target with an action, you may also Hinder that target using your Min die.
Storm-Driven (I) If you would take damage from Weather, ignore that damage and instead Recover that much Health. Use the value of that damage to Boost yourself.
Tempest (A) Use Weather to Attack up to three targets, one of which must be you. Assign your Max, Mid and Min dice as you choose among those targets.
Out
Spirit Totem (A) Boost an ally by rolling your single Magical Lore die.
Tactics
In Green, Biting Wind provides a strong single-target offense, Howling Storm offers early minion-sweeping damage (and gets much better with bonuses later on), and Demanding Hex gives a strong debuff that can deal some damage on doubles. His Principle of Magic is fairly easy to apply with his mix of physical and mental magics, and his Principle of the Time Traveler might come in handy for obscure historical facts, roughing it without modern technology and hunting prey - animal, human or supernatural.
In Yellow, he starts earning bonuses for defeating minions through Taste of Triumph, which is really easy to do with Drive To Destruction to force the weak-minded to obey him momentarily before they collapse from psychic shock. Wild Fury lets him take advantage of his raw physical power and is a very efficient way to generate more bonuses, albeit something of a double-edged sword if the target isn't defeated in the process.
In Red, Blood Curses adds a small Hinder to all of his many, many Attack options. The combination of Tempest and Storm-Driven give him extremely versatile offense, healing and self-Boosting options.
Once Out, he can continue to Boost his allies with Spirit Totem.
Design Notes
Why an Anachronistic Background? He's native to the latter part of the 15th century AD. Yes, that's the same space-time neighborhood that Vlad the Impaler lived in IRL. No, he hasn't met the guy.
Why Nature as a Power Source? Both his learned magical talents and his lycanthropy stem from "natural" sources rather than an otherworldly patron or manipulating extradimensional energies.
Why Sorcerer as an Archetype? He relies on his magic more than his werewolf abilities. Helps keep the supposed "curse" under control, not that he's ever had much trouble with that anyway. Lycanthropes that go animalistic under the full moon are just weak-willed in his opinion - or naturally inclined toward toward murder.
Why Lone Wolf as a personality? He's a werewolf without a pack, and used to working solo anyway because most people can't handle monster-hunting. That might change if he stuck around a team of supers long enough.
What about his Powers and Qualities? His Powers are a mix of lycanthropic abilities and magical talents. Shapeshifting has a small die size because it's very limited, not because it's weak. As a werewolf he can really only do man, wolf, and wolfman forms, and use his shifting to help his injuries heal a bit. No imitating other people (or animals), much less pretending to be a mailbox or robot or whatever. Lycanthropy grants him superhuman (or superlupine) Strength. Suggestion and Animal Control reflect his ability to magically impose his will on others regardless of their nature, although it doesn't work on most machine intelligences and struggles against some exotic aliens. Suggestion gets used in a lot of his social die pools, something he's fairly terrible at anyway. Weather magic is his big trick, used in a lot of his abilities, and has the side effect of making his environment a little cool and humid unless he concentrates on restraining himself. He's best at manifesting unnatural winds at near-hurricane force, summoning and shaping fog and mist, and darkening the sky with ominous clouds. An erratic rain-maker at best, he often loses control of any downpours he triggers with, say, Tempest.
For Qualities, Stealth is a combination of years of experience hunting men, beasts, and stranger things with his lupine instincts. In his day he was known as one of the finest swordsmen in all the Balkans and a dangerous man in a tavern brawl as well, and adding lycanthropic might has only improved his Close Combat. His training and natural talent for witchcraft gives him a solid Magical Lore. 15th Century Slavic Mercenary & Monster-Hunter is a limited proxy for (very narrow) History, (very crude) Medicine, Alertness (for tracking and spotting ambushes), Ranged Combat (with antiquated weapons), and a touch of Insight, Imposing or Persuasion (mostly for spotting "tells" from unnatural critters, intimidating peasants and negotiating fees as a sellsword).
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