Speaking of That

[bryant]

The Water-rat is a punk kid, known at home as Cristofo da Riva. (But home is an evanescent thing, as often a coil of rope on the dock as it is anything with a roof.) At the time of writing, he is a youthful fifteen: old enough to know better, but far too young to care. He has lived in Venice all his life. His father was most likely a minor nobleman, although he likes to think that his lineage might secretly touch upon the Doges themselves; his mother makes a living providing gentle companionship to those with sufficient manners and coin. She has been away, travelling in Spain with her current amore, since before Cristofo's powers emerged. There is no doubt a large measure of surprise in her future.

Being "gifted" hasn't really changed him much. He's the same foul-mouthed street urchin he's always been, prone to bragging about his achivements and spending a lot of time sleeping in the sun. His spur to heroism is a desire to keep Venice great; he's fiercely patriotic and knows that Venice is the best of all possible cities. Wisely, he hasn't gone to the Doge to volunteer his services -- he's quite aware that the Doge is more likely to fear a Water-rat than make good use of him. But if he makes a name for himself, well, there's the chance for something good then. Possibly he'll have to leave Venice to do that, but he'll think about that when he gets to it.

The core concept behind his powers: "Water likes me." He carries a substantial amount of water with him (don't get distracted by physics), which acts as armor and which he can project as water jets. The water jets make for offense of various types, and with a bit of care he can balance on them to get taller. He's also as good a swimmer as you'd expect. He's regrettably very identifiable; he always drips.

Note to Hero geeks: I've never played a straightforward energy projector. And everyone gets to play one once. So there.

<td colspan="4">Hunted: Medicis (more powerful, NCI, 8-)</td> <td colspan="4">Hunted: Venice City Watch (more powerful, NCI, 8-, mildly punish, limited area)</td> <td colspan="4">Psych Lim: hates any non-Venetian Italians (common, strong)</td> <td colspan="4">Psych Lim: dislikes being out of sight of water (common, moderate)</td> <td colspan="4">Vulnerable: fire (common, 2x)</td>

Stats
-2	Str	8
24	Dex	18
20	Con	20
20	Bod	20
	Int	10
	Ego	10
	Pre	10
	Com	10
5	PD	7
3	ED	7
12	Spd	4
8	Rec	10
	End	40
1	Stun	35
Skills
3	Acrobatics		13-
3	Breakfall		13-
3	Climbing		13-
3	Stealth		13-
3	Streetwise		11-
3	Survival (Urban)		11-
3	Trading	11-
2	KS: Venice		11-
1	PS: Boatman		8-
1	TF: Small Rowed Boats
1	TF: Large Rowed Boats
1	TF: Small Wind-powered Boats
1	TF: Large Wind-powered Boats
	Italian (native)
1	English (basic)
1	French (fluent)
1	Spanish (fluent)
1	Greek (basic)
2	Arabic (basic)
Powers
29	Watery Shroud: Armor, 12/12, -1/4 ablative (rolls as per -1/2 Ablative, recharges with 5 minutes spent in water)
4	The Deep's Love: Environmental Movement, aquatic movement w/no penalties (2 PSLs vs. aquatic penalties)
5	The Deep's Kiss: Life Support (underwater)
10	Splitting the Waves: Swimming, 10"
50	Ocean's Reach: MP, 50 active points (water jets)
5		Hammer of Neptune: 10d6 EB (vs. PD)
4		Crashing Wave: EB, 4d6, +1 area effect cone (vs. PD)
4		Breath-taking Foam: EB, 4d6, +1 NND (resistant PD defends)
1		Towering Storm: Stretching, 4", +1/4 does not cross intervening space, -1/4 direct only, -1/2 only straight up
2		Salty Mist: 8d6 Flash, -1/4 not vs. desolid
Disads
15	Distinctive Features: wet (not concealable)
20
10
15
10
10	Social Limitation: kid (11-, minor)
20

Comments

I'm picturing ...

[(Anonymous)]

... a whole group of teenage medieval superbeings from different nations, united under the auspices of the Church (or maybe the Holy Roman Empire) for the purpose of fighting evil, promoting Christian virtues, and battling the infidel!

Naturally, of course, there's a pipe-smoking liason to the Church (or the Empire), a nun to serve as chaperone, and the Really Major Church (or ... hell, I'm not going to bother repeating this every damn time) Superhero, who far overpowers our teen heroes but is perhaps not so unreservedly loyal and Christian as his backers might have us believe. Doubtless a French-Provencal mentalist, a Balkan shapeshifter, and an ice-projector from the New World will also figure in somewhere ...

Okay, so that was a long run for a short slide kind of joke, but seriously, the campaign idea is kinda neat and I quite like the character. The stretching seems weird on first glance but after thinking about it makes more sense than Flight with lots of odd limitations. You could do Growth with slightly fewer odd limitations I suppose but 5E did weird things with Growth, if I remember. And speaking of which, I think Flash is more expensive in 5th?

rambling,

-f

Re: I'm picturing ...

[bryant]

What can I say? I'm addicted to teen heros. (Note the clear attempt to make a water-based hero who wasn't either Navy or Tsunami.)

Flash is still 5 points for 1d6, but it lasts for X segments, rather than X moves on the part of the flashee.

Growth would have worked OK, but I didn't want all the stat bonuses. :)

Re: I'm picturing ...

[(Anonymous)]

It worked! Tsunami was much more elemental, Navy was much more controller than projector. And of course both were rather more, uh, straight arrows by comparison. I'm painting very broad strokes here, you'll have to excuse me.

I think teen heroes are possibly the most interesting; although I would generalize it more to "people who've just gotten their powers"; it's harder for mere humans to internalize what goes on in the heads of people who've had powers for a long time, without actually working through the experiences that have shaped their attitudes on how their abilities impact their society (and arguably their world as a whole). Unless you're playing in a strictly four-color universe, of course, but characters in four-color tend to be kinda 2D anyway. Besides that, teenagers have an obvious advantage in that we've all been through that period and, while we don't have experience with the whole getting superpowers thing, you could make a pretty convincing argument to the effect that in some ways it's just an extension of lots of other things teenagers deal with.

Or perhaps I'm overanalyzing; I do that sometimes.

-f

Re: I'm picturing ...

[bryant]

Nah, I'd agree with those comments. Mind you, this wouldn't have to be an all teen campaign -- you could as easily do someone of some age who'd gotten powers. My first concept was a Scottish musician, in fact. But I liked the Water-rat better.

(It is probable that most characters are more straight-arrow than mine.)