Player’s Name: Sacerdos
Power Level: 10 (151/154pp)
Trade-Offs: None
Unspent PP: 3
Character’s Name: Thunderstanding
Alternate Identity: Alicia Whiting
Height: 5’ 11â€Â
Weight: 275 lbs.
Hair: Black
Eyes: Brown
Description: Alicia is a tall, muscular woman with rich café au lait colored skin. She moves like a panther and speaks with a deep, husky voice. Her face betrays her multiracial background, with a wide nose and lips below almond-shaped eyes that sport epicanthic folds. She wears her perfectly straight black hair in a chin-length bob cut, with bangs flowing about an inch longer on either side of her face.
In costume, she wears a black unitard that covers her from chin to mid-thigh, but leaves her shoulders, arms, and most of her back bare. She also sports combat boots, a domino mask, and leather gloves, all black. Occasionally, she accessorizes with a little silver jewelry. When not on the job, so to speak, she prefers jeans and T-shirts. That said, she cleans up well, wearing stylish dresses and makeup for nights on the town.
History: Ask anyone who knew her back when, and they’ll tell you that Alicia Whiting was one heck of a wild child. Headstrong and tomboyish, she got into more fights than her three brothers combined. As she neared puberty, her parents, Tom and Shandra, worried about the trouble she’d get into as a teenager and seeking a way to instill a little discipline in the impetuous girl, enrolled her in a Tae Kwon Do academy recommended by Alicia’s Korean grandmother, Granny Hea.
Alicia took to martial arts like the proverbial duck to water. She moved rapidly through the beginner ranks, her grades improved dramatically, and she stopped fighting at school. Her parents were overjoyed at the change in their daughter. They were less thrilled when she announced her intention to pursue a career as a professional MMA fighter.
Unsurprisingly, given her temperament, the more they tried to talk Alicia out of becoming a prize fighter, the more she was determined to do it. What started as “just a phase†eventually turned into a source of real friction between her and the rest of her family. Her father very nearly disowned her when she dropped out of college after ditching classes to train and participate in a series of tournaments. She won her first five bouts easily and was popular with the crowds, so she decided--without consulting anyone else--to dedicate herself full-time to the sport.
Eleven months and eight wins later, Alicia “Thunder†Whiting was competing with the best that women’s MMA had to offer. The money was rolling in, she was the next big thing, and everyone expected her to have a long and successful career. Everyone was wrong.
Thoroughly inebriated after a night of celebrating her latest win, Alicia mounted her motorcycle, sped around a corner, and plowed into the back of a street cleaner at forty miles an hour. After six hours on an operating table at McNider Memorial Hospital, Alicia was moved to the intensive care unit where she remained on life support. Six weeks later, her parents made the agonizing decision to pull the plug.
To everyone’s amazement, the young woman kept breathing. Over the course of the next few days, her pulse grew ever stronger and her damaged flesh mended itself. Baffled, her doctors chalked her recovery up to a miracle and declared her Freedom City’s newest super-powered citizen.
In the meantime, Alicia dreamed. In her mind’s eye, she stood in an ancient and battered fighting ring in the middle of an impossibly massive arena, playing king of the hill with an endless stream of warriors. In the fashion of dreams, she imagined herself to be superhuman, stronger than she possibly could be and possessed of unbelievable martial skills. And the metahuman genes buried within her DNA turned dreams and desire into reality.
On the ninth day after her death, Alicia recovered consciousness. She was given a clean bill of health a few hours later and released herself from the hospital. After spending some time with her overjoyed family and friends, she went to a gym and put her foot clean through an eighty-pound punching bag. Thunderstruck, she occupied herself over the next several days with pushing her limits and testing her new-found abilities.
From the get-go, it was obvious that her days as an MMA star were over. Metahuman powers were strictly forbidden in the ring, and rightly so. As it was, enough people were questioning her victories to make her uncomfortable. Fortunately, she’d made enough prize and endorsement money to set herself up for quite some time. Unfortunately, she was left at a loss for what to do with herself.
Before long, though, a televised battle between the Atom Family and the Meta-Grue provided her with a new direction. True, it was informal and without rules, but here was a new venue for her to test her skills in. Really, when all was said and done, the lack of rules appealed to Alicia. After all, she’d never have to struggle to make weight again. And, it didn’t hurt that fighting supervillains would help the world in ways that participating in MMA tournaments never could. And so, Thunderstanding was born.
Personality & Motivation: Alicia is a woman driven by the inner fire that spurs great athletes to their greatness. She simply demands to be the best in the world, and will push herself endlessly until she gets there. She thrives on competition and lives for the thrill of victory. Public acclaim doesn’t exactly turn her off, either.
That said, there is an altruistic side to her nature. When she was prize fighting, she donated a fair amount of her time and winnings to her favorite charities. Her horrifically bad acting actually made her public service announcement videos relatively popular, in the same way that cheesy B movies attract viewers. In other words, she does get a kick out of saving kittens from trees, even if her first love is testing herself against all comers.
Also, despite their ups and downs, Alicia is still very attached to her family. She keeps in touch with her brothers and sister, and pays her parents regular visits. Her mom and dad are at least resigned to, if not wholly supportive of, their daughter’s choice of career, and they are willing to put their differences with it aside in order to stay on good terms with her.
Powers & Tactics: Thunderstanding is an exceptionally strong, rugged, and skilled combatant. Her powers not only grant her the ability to ignore small arms fire and punch through trucks, but they also enhance her martial arts prowess to levels rarely seen outside of Chinese “wire fu†movies. An incautious fighter, she uses her abilities to close quickly with opponents and rain blows upon them. Against weaker opponents, she won’t hesitate to take a fight to the ground and grapple them into submission.
Her real power is the one that nobody knows about. Alicia’s body reacts to extreme damage by reinventing itself. Whenever she suffers enough trauma to kill her, she instead lapses into a regenerative coma. During this time, she experiences a lucid dream-state that she can use to recreate her body and powers as she sees fit. It’s impossible to say what the true potential of this ability is, and it’s quite likely that she’ll never realize that she has it.
Complications:
Fame: Alicia is well-known among fans of women’s mixed martial arts. Though this is a small subset of the population, there are enough of them to occasionally complicate her life.
Rivalry: Thunderstanding has real trouble passing up a direct challenge, especially from a superhuman martial artist. She’s been known to step into even an obvious trap when some villain or other has thrown down the gauntlet.
Temper: Alicia’s anger is on a short fuse, and she’s forever doing and saying things in the heat of the moment that she later regrets.
Stats: 24pp
Str: 14/30 (+2/10)
Dex: 16/18 (+3/4)
Con: 14/30 (+2/10)
Int: 12 (+1)
Wis: 10 (+0)
Cha: 18 (+4)
Combat: 22pp
Attack: +5 (+10 Melee)
Grapple: +23
Defense: +6 (+10 w/ Dodge Focus; +3 flat-footed)
Knockback: -10
Initiative: +8
Saves: 9pp
Toughness: +10 (+10 Con, +0 other; 5 impervious)
Fortitude: +10 (+10 Con, +0)
Reflex: +8 (+4 Dex, +4)
Will: +5 (+0 Wis, +5)
Skills: 64r = 16pp
Acrobatics 11 (+15)
Bluff 5 (+9)
Drive 4 (+8)
Gather Information 6 (+10)
Intimidate 5 (+9)
Knowledge (Streetwise) 6 (+7)
Notice 8 (+8)
Sense Motive 11 (+11)
Stealth 8 (+12)
Feats: 27pp
Acrobatic Bluff
All-Out Attack
Assessment
Attack Focus (Melee) 5
Connected
Defensive Attack
Dodge Focus 4
Equipment 2
Improved Block
Improved Critical (Unarmed) 1
Improved Initiative 1
Improved Pin
Instant Up
Power Attack
Stunning Attack
Skill Mastery 1 (Acrobatics, Intimidate, Sense Motive, Stealth)
Takedown Attack 2
Uncanny Dodge (Hearing)
Powers: 53pp
Enhanced Strength 16 [16pp]
Enhanced Dexterity 2 [2pp]
Enhanced Constitution 16 [16pp]
Flight 2 (Flaw: Wuxia Flight*; PF: Subtle) [3pp]
Immovable 2 (Flagstone cracking step**) [2pp]
Impervious Toughness 5 [5pp]
Regeneration 1 (Resurrection - brain must be intact; PF: Reincarnation; Drawback: Noticeable - Alicia is obviously not dead while reincarnating, and continuing damage will delay the process.) [1pp]
Super-Movement 1 (Water Walking; Drawback: Only while moving) [1pp]
Super-Strength 3 (PF: Groundstrike) [7pp]
*Wuxia Flight (-1 Flaw): The character cannot truly fly, but is capable of defying gravity via great self control and mastery of the martial arts. The character may travel through the air as normal for someone with the flight power, but may only maintain the power for a number of rounds equal to their ranks in Flight. During the last round you are able to sustain your power, you must end your movement on something solid or you will begin to fall. Note that it can literally be anything solid, no matter how flimsy, so a character could literally end one round by touching a leaf floating in the wind and then use it to kick off to begin his flight again the next round. If the character has the Water Walking Super Movement power, he can similarly use liquids to end his movement on, and if he purchases a second rank in Water Walking, he may use his power to walk on clouds and similar phenomena. You cannot have more than 4 ranks in Flight if you take this Flaw.
This YouTube video shows what I have in mind with Wuxia Flight.
**See 1:00 - 1:06 of this video for why I chose that description.
Drawbacks: 0pp
DC Block:
ATTACKS: --------- SAVE DC: ------- DAMAGE TYPE:
Unarmed ---------- 25/Toughness --- Bruise (Staged)
Stunning Attack -- 20/Fortitude --- Stun (Staged)
Costs: Abilities (24) + Combat (22) + Saves (09) + Skills (16) + Feats (27) + Powers (53) - Drawbacks (00) = 151/154pp
