A new character for a "cosmic heroes" play-by-post game that's starting up. She's intended to fill some gaps in her team by adding some extreme stealthy mobility, criminal connections, starship crew skills, and a talent for convincing people to do what she wants them to, mostly used to get folks to believe what she's telling them. Her abilities aren't particularly amazing although her die pools can be quite good, so she's expecting to spend more time than usual doing creative Overcomes exploiting her powers and qualities.
Phade (civilian identity Melbourne "Mel" DuQuesne)
Last survivor of the notorious smuggler's ship Prophet Of Profit, Mel was empowered by the FTL accident that destroyed the vessel and slew her crewmates. Adopting the supranym Phade, she built on her previous experience to make a reputation for herself as a super-powered expert in the "covert transport" field, able to deliver or extract a cargo to or from almost any location. While she refused to deal in the "livestock trade" (sapient or not) almost anything else was fair game, from unstable paracausal substances to illegal memetic code to stolen alien artifacts. This went on for almost a decade until she ran afoul of cosmic hero who synchronized his own precognitive powers with hers and forced her to confront the future her current path would lead to.
Shaken, Phade disappeared for a time, returning recently to resume her activities with a twist. She was now an ethical smuggler, only accepting jobs that would help redeem her past misdeeds. Helping refugees reach a safe haven? Rescuing the unjustly imprisoned from durance vile? Smuggling weaponry to heroic resistance fighters defending their world from invasion? All right up her alley now. She might even directly oppose some of her old rivals, especially slavers and those who are too quick to resort to violence instead of stealth and cunning, the hallmarks of any good smuggler. Phade has also found that working with more...definite do-gooders can be helpful, since she sometimes has trouble convincing various authorities of her new-found good intentions and having someone to vouch for her never hurts with those types.
Description: When she's visible and in costume, a solidly-built human female in a form-fitting, full-coverage pale gray shipsuit, topped off with a matching ovoid helmet with three sleek fins and a blue faceplate. The outfit serves as a lightweight environment suit that can serve as an under-layer for use with heavier EVA gear if needed. Out of costume she keeps her shipsuit gloves at all times and favors sturdy overalls with plenty of pockets and sleeveless tees bearing various scifi band logos, exposing her programmable tattoos. Shipside she wears traditional grip-shoes, dirtside she prefers badass combat boots that she'll teleport right out of if she needs to move quietly. Knowledgeable observers will notice telltale signs that she's been on anagathics for years (if not decades) and is older than she looks. Has a deep contralto voice and can't carry a tune in a bucket, not that it stops her from trying.
Most of the time she's either translucent or completely invisible, although thankfully she lapses into full opacity when unconscious, including natural sleep.
Gender: Female Age: Sixty-something (looks thirty) Height: 5'2" Eyes: Blue
Hair: Blonde, Buzz-cut Skin: Pale, Elaborate "Smart" Tattoos Build: Sturdy
Background: Former Villain Power Source: Supernatural Archetype: Transporter
Personality: Fast Talking Health (G/Y/R): 28/21/10
Powers: Invisibility d10, Teleportation d10, Intangibility d8, Precognition d8, Signature Vehicle (Grav Bike) d6
Qualities: Criminal Underworld Info d10, Persuasion d10, Stealth d10, Technology d8, Veteran Star Smuggler d8
Status: Green (28-22) - d6 / Yellow (21-11) - d8 / Red (10-1) - d12
Abilities:
Green
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 device just shorted out? Major twist: What machine just went terribly off the rails? RP: You always know the general state of repair and function of an item of technology, regardless of complexity or origin.
Principle of Stealth (A) Overcome to infiltrate somewhere or avoid detection. Use your Max die. You and your allies each gain a Hero Point. Minor twist: What evidence of your presence did you leave behind? Major twist: What just happened to identify you as an obvious threat? RP: You always know the most efficient method to enter or leave a location.
Teleport Cascade (A) Attack multiple targets using Teleportation. Use your Min die against each.
Unseen Assailant (A) Attack using Invisibility. Use your Min die to Defend against all Attacks against you until your next turn.
Yellow
Defensive Displacement (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.
Displacement Shock (A) Attack using Teleportation. Either Hinder your target with your Min die, or move them somewhere else in the scene.
Phade Away (A) Boost yourself using Invisibility. Use your Max die. That bonus is persistent and exclusive.
Red
Cool Under Pressure (I) When you use an ability action, you may also perform any one basic action using your Mid die.
Unseen and Untouchable (A) Defend against all Attacks against you until the beginning of you next turn using Invisibility. Use your Max + Mid dice.
Out
Negotiating A Betrayal (A) Hinder a minion or lieutenant by rolling your single Persuasion die, and increase the value of that penalty by 1.
Tactics
Phade is held back some in Green by her weak status die, which makes even Principled Overcomes pretty risky and Teleport Cascade likely to just downgrade minions rather than KO them. Her low-risk option is to just use Unseen Assailant (which will at least provide some omni-defense plus moderate damage) but there's a good argument for taking a minor twist immediately to use Phade Away one zone early. Establishing a persistent bonus to make things easier from then on is probably worth the twist. Even +2 shifts the odds on Overcomes enormously and makes her various Min die effects more reliable.
If she hasn't used it already, Phade Away is the first priority once she's in Yellow, and repeating it if/when the bonus is scrubbed off is almost as important. She also gets access to her Defensive Displacement Reaction, which is going to wind up doing a lot of work over time keeping her allies safe and improving their positioning. Displacement Shock is her Reaction's offensive variant, letting her deal some damage and forcibly move enemies around, or just Hinder them instead. Unseen Assailant is likely to remain her go-to ability most turns, though.
In Red she shifts to using the combination of Unseen and Untouchable and Cool Under Pressure as a more versatile, much stronger form of Unseen Assailant, and gains a huge status die that makes everything she does work better. If she doesn't need a massive omni-defend she can still combo the extra basic action from Cool Under Pressure with her other abilities, letting her accomplish a lot more with her turns. If the situation really calls for maximum damage no matter the cost, she could make her free basic action risky by taking a minor twist, which would let he use her Max die - no small matter with what's likely to be a d10, d10, d12 die pool. Same goes for basic Overcomes where she can't get a Principle into play.
Once she goes Out, she surrenders and concentrates on trying to convince a likely enemy to turn traitor to assist her escape by using Negotiating A Betrayal.
Design Notes
Phade is a rather defensive combat build overall, and I suspect her "Red zone moments of glory" will revolve more around evading ludicrous amounts of damage while completing some vital challenge at the last moment than putting the finishing blow on an enemy. That said, she's a long way from invincible. It's pretty easy to hit her so hard she goes straight from medium-low Health in Yellow to Out without getting a turn in Red to put up her final defenses. The rare villains with with Attacks that ignore Defend actions are also a dire threat, and spoil her ability to Defend her allies as well.
Conceptually, I envision her various powers and qualities working like this:
Invisibility d10: This one of her core powers along with Teleportation, and seems to be somehow connected it. It renders her transparent to a wide part of the EM spectrum (far beyond human visual ranges) and is so fast and effortless it's essential reflexive to activate, which occasionally ties in to her Precognition power in a narrative sense. She actually has a tendency to drift into translucency when sufficiently distracted, and when "working" she usually remains somewhat blurred and hard to see to help protect her identity. The power is very strong but has some serious limitations, such as being largely negated by certain sensory powers and technology, including fairly basic echolocation. It also doesn't "stretch" well, so she can't render other people invisible or conceal objects of any great size. If she can hold something in one hand it tuck it in a pocket (which her usual clothing and costume are well equipped with - women's fashions are much less absurd in Space) her power can cover it, but she can't handle bags full of swag, a rucksack full of treasures, or an unconscious ally's body. She also definitely cannot turn her signature grav bike invisible.
Invisibility obviously pools mostly with Stealth, but might work its way into some odd Overcomes. Pooling it with Criminal Underworld info or Persuasion to trick someone into believing she's a haunting spirit could happen, and it might be used with Technology to spoof visual sensors into thinking they're malfunctioning.
Teleportation d10: This is Phade's other defining power, and is tied to Invisibility to such a degree that careful video analysis (or super-speed senses) will reveal that she disappears visually a few microsecond before she physically displaces herself during a jump. Short teleports (within the bounds of most action scenes) are fast and require little effort, as well as being quite stealthy, producing little disturbance at either end of a jump. Achieving longer ranges or penetrating anti-teleportation barriers requires much more time and effort and would call for an Overcome. Her maximum range can reach to and from low orbit on most worlds, but she needs to be personally familiar with her destination to even try that.
The power is moderately "stretchy" as well, which allows her to carry other people or similarly-sized objects with her if she starts in contact with them, which requires at least her movement (limiting her other action options) and possibly a proper Overcome depending on the situation. By pushing herself she can even momentarily extend her jump field to move others at a distance or against their will, as seen in some of her Yellow abilities. She can also extend the field slightly beyond its normal limits to use as a weapon, causing damage by getting close to a target and ripping it up with the spatial distortions at the fringe of the field, which is normally what's happening when she's making Attacks (although sometimes she'll just punch or kick someone instead if they look "soft" enough. Many uses of Teleportation may require Overcomes to represent the stress caused to her (and possibly to her passengers), but her actual abilities are generally reliable and function just as written.
Teleportation often pools with Stealth, either for offensive "sneak attack" actions or to determine the best routes to avoid security measures and other hazards, which is also supported by Principle of Stealth (go figure). Might also see use with Technology to analyze, overload or slip past teleport barriers, and Veteran Star Smuggler or Criminal Underworld Info during heists or smuggling operations (all in a good cause, of course). Conceptually, she'll always be manifesting some degree of Invisibility while jumping around, so she's got a reputation in some circles as the spooky ghost lady that appears out of nowhere without warning.
Intangibility d8: An extreme manifestation of her Teleportation, this power lets her "stutter" in and out of normal space-time so rapidly she can pass through normal matter and many energy fields as though they weren't there. It's a difficult trick and she hasn't practiced it much (hence the smaller die and lack of abilities keyed to it) but occasionally comes in handy. Using it is glaringly obvious to anyone or anything that's able to detect discontinuities in the fabric of reality, and might interfere with dimensional seals, wards, and gateways or some types of FTL drives. She also can't "stretch" the power to carry anything bigger than what she could hold in the palm of one hand, and she's generally leery about trying to manipulate solid objects while she's partway through a wall or something.
This power is most often pooled with Stealth for intrusion-based Overcomes, but might also be used with Technology or Veteran Star Smuggler for sabotage or repairs. Using it for pickpocket and sleight of hand tricks will probably involve a default d4 unless she's recently gotten some training time with a more talented associate she knows through Criminal Underworld Info. That kind of crime just isn't her gig.
Precognition d8: Phade's version of Precognition is pretty limited despite a decent die size, and operates largely outside of her conscious control and is closely connected to the paracausal effects of teleportation, which is essentially a short-range FTL jump. It mainly lets her know subconsciously what the conditions will be like at a possible destination just before she teleports, justifying how she makes bling teleports while avoiding "transporter accidents" when doing so. I could have taken Remote viewing to do much the same thing, but Precognition seemed more interesting for the GM to hang "prophetic dream" story hooks off of - and honestly, she did not need to be able to reliably see distant locations to make her even more ridiculous at espionage and intrusion tasks. She definitely cannot just willingly see the future whenever she wants, and is shockingly bad at Zener card tests.
Precognition might be pooled with Persuasion (where she unconsciously avoids saying the wrong thing by peeping into the timescape for a moment), Criminal Underworld Info or Veteran Star Smuggler (to "have a bad feeling about this" when in danger of sudden betrayal or ambushes), or Technology (for the classic "do I cut the red wire or the blue wire?" trope), but mostly it's just kind of narratively running in the background as she uses Teleportation. .
Signature Vehicle (Grav Bike) d6: Grav bikes and similar personal vehicles are commonplace among small ship crews, where they serve as more convenient groundside transportation than ship's shuttle or the vessel itself. Smugglers and raiders are particularly enamored of them, often customizing them with weapons and enhanced controls and engines. Phade doesn't own one of those hotrods. She usually keeps an older, often battered bike around, but she doesn't get much practical use out of it since her natural mobility powers are far more impressive. Her current ride is a Model 222M "Skyhog" two-seater, an outdated design made by the CalTex Lifter Corporation. By biker enthusiast standards it's underpowered, a little clumsy, not very fast, but it is quite reliable, has a good semi-AI autopilot and some history buffs regard it as a classic. When she does bring her Skyhog along on a job, she usually parks it in a safe (or at least concealed) location or sets it to unobtrusively orbit the area while mingling with other aerial traffic, then teleports into action. Despite this cautiious approach, I expect her bike will be getting trashed/stolen and replaced repeatedly over time.
Uses for this thing in an action scene are kind of limited, but it could be pooled with several of her qualities to help establish a reputation as badass smuggler, outworld raider, or grav bike enthusiast with slightly dated tastes. Or at least as someone who is not a notorious super-powered ex-criminal with amazing teleportation powers, because why would they be riding that stodgy old clunker? She also finds tinkering with the thing is a good way to relieve stress, which would be pooled with Technology if she actually to roll for it. And yes, she still owns a digibook copy of "Cosmo-Zen & the Art of Grav Bike Maintenance" that she read in college.
Criminal Underworld Info d10: This represents Phade's background as a former villain and all the contacts she made in her older, less altruistic days. It's most effective with things related to smuggling, but she can usually find someone who can point in the right direction to find specialists other "services" like murder for hire, white-collar crime, illegal memetic manipulations and mercenary super-thuggery. She's made a lot of contacts over the years, no doubt aided by her super-powers (which put her in a whole new league).
One legacy of her activities can be found in the expensive set of "smart tattoos" that cover her arms and some other parts of her body. Aside from purely aesthetic displays, these can be programmed to show a variety of recognition symbols, vouchsafes, secret codes and allied gang affiliations. She's probably even got some that can "prove" she's an undercover law enforcement agent.
Persuasion d10: Phade has a (mostly) natural talent for talking people into things they might not otherwise do, which came in handy during her villainous career and is more useful for convincing people that those days are behind her. Her approach is quite flexible, ranging from subtle threats and implied (or actual) blackmail to "simple" (albeit strangely convoluted) logic to exploiting her fast-talking personality to confuse the issue until people agree to her requests.
It's worth noting that she's not particularly good at resisting the same kind of social manipulation, and it was a persuasive hero that got her to turn to the side of justice in the first place. Keeping her away from smooth-tongued criminals who might tempt her to backslide might be a good idea.
Stealth d10: This is really the core quality of Phade's character, and sees a lot of use. Aside from the obvious general utility for sneaking around, it also serves as her main fighting style whether she's invisibly sucker punching chumps or suddenly teleporting in to rip battledroids apart with the fringes of her jump field. One of her Principles is directly connected to this quality, and its roleplaying effects make her even better at getting in and out of places she isn't welcome.
Narratively, she also manages to maintain some divide between her "super-work" identity and her "plain old space hauler" persona. It's not too difficult to chase down connections between the two, but finding hard evidence and incontrovertible proof isn't easy.
Technology d8: This is where her engineering skills come from, and represents a mix of formal and on-the-job training. She actually has a real college degree in computer security as well, which she used to grossly misuse for criminal purposes. Those days are over, of course, but the same skill set still helps her cover her tracks and keep people from digging into her past.
Her grav bike repair hobby is probably the most innocent use she has for this quality.
Veteran Star Smuggler d8: This is her custom roleplaying quality, and describes her life's focus (at least in her pre-hero days) succinctly. It includes the skills needed to operate a small starship or serve as crew on a larger one and roughly emulates Deep Space Knowledge with a bias toward unstable or crime-ridden regions of space, details of border patrols and customs services, and where other smugglers are likely to be working. She can pass as a legitimate spacer with it, but may not be entirely convincing in the role over the long term.
Just having this quality will mark her out for unwanted attention from some authorities and rivals, although they may fail to identify exactly who they're dealing with is she's trying to conceal her identity.
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