King of Suits
:arrow: Buying Uncanny Dodge(hearing), Defensive Roll and 2 ranks in Equipment.
:arrow: With the EP I'd like to buy Handcuffs, Mini-Tracers, Concealable Microphones, Rebreathers, a Flashlight and Multitool. With the other 4 EP I'd like to add it to the grapple gun, giving it Super-Movement 3(Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling).
:arrow: Finally, I'd like to purchase 8 ranks of Sense Motive.
Player Name: Arichamus
[b][u]Character Name:[/u][/b] King of Suits
[b][u]Power Level:[/u][/b] 12 (170/176PP)
[b][u]Trade-Offs:[/u][/b] +5 Attack / -5 Damage (Melee), +1 Attack / -1 Damage (Ranged), +4 Defense / -4 Toughness
[b][u]Unspent PP:[/u][/b] 0
[b][u]Progress To Bronze Status:[/u][/b] 26/30
[b]In Brief:[/b] French crime-fighter come to Freedom City to test and improve his abilities and help anyone he can.
[b][u]Alternate Identity:[/u][/b] Marceau Suvou
[b][u]Identity:[/u][/b] Secret
[b][u]Birthplace:[/u][/b] Aude, France
[b][u]Occupation:[/u][/b] Janitor, superhero
[b][u]Affiliations:[/u][/b] House of Suits
[b][u]Family:[/u][/b] Masud Suvou (Father), Kioni An-Sallah-Suvou (Mother)
[b][u]Age:[/u][/b] 27
[b][u]Apparent Age:[/u][/b] N/A
[b][u]Gender:[/u][/b] Male
[b][u]Ethnicity:[/u][/b] Moroccan/Kenyan
[b][u]Height:[/u][/b] 6'5"
[b][u]Weight:[/u][/b] 158 lbs.
[b][u]Eyes:[/u][/b] Blue
[b][u]Hair:[/u][/b] Black
[b][u]Description:[/u][/b] In his regular attire Marceau is a largely forgettable figure in drab earth-toned coveralls and work boots. In-costume, he wears a 'typical' black and red cape-and-cowl with the insignia of one of the four card suits emblazoned on the chest in attractive white shades. He keeps his hair short and at a remove from his face, giving him a high forehead, which combined with his far-spaced eyes gives him a look of constant apprehension. His nose is also short and blunt, his mouth is thin and often curved slightly upwards at some remembered joke, and he wears a a short, bristling beard. His voice is low, deep and grumbling.
[b][u]Power Descriptions:[/u][/b] Marceau no longer possesses any powers beyond training and skill and small gadgets, and thus relies on stealth to fight.
[b][u]History:[/u][/b]
[spoiler]The Suvou family tree stretches southwards all the way to the southern-most coast of Morocco, where in ages past they were called the Swaarao. They served as diplomats to foreign lands, including embryonic Dakana. In 204, however, economic self-destruction seemed inevitable, and the family left for the (comparatively) stable lands of Europe, buying a village a few dozen miles west of the Alps in what is today France. There, they settled and became, if not prosperous, stable and financially secure. They were good at dealing with people, and passing barbarians were treated kindly enough and given enough in gifts that the Eurasian emigrants felt it unnecessary to burn the place or ravage the inhabitants. Thus, and by the steady fortification of their village, plus their careful method of keeping on the good side of anyone strong enough to harm them, left their region of land untouched by war for several centuries. They even managed to survive the fall of the Roman Empire in 476, sheltering travelers and refugees in their relatively peaceful abode.
They held onto rule of the town for around 400 years, until 866, when their power was undermined by a cabal of merchants, who foresaw(with perfect accuracy) an upcoming struggle that the then-Savoro family's machinations couldn't stave off. The family smarted from this loss, as they had in the centuries beforehand enjoyed almost unbounded success in their efforts. By one of those fatal accidents that crop up in history with appalling regularity, the matriarch of the the line happened to be passing the house of a family friend, Janus Amblaeth, a reclusive astrologer who had an unparalleled knowledge of the medium, when she commented angrily that she wished "All the princes were [their] kin! We would have true power then". By itself this incident wouldn't have caused any harm, but Janus heard it in the midst of checking over his star-chart for inaccuracies, and he happened to glance at the sign that heralded the birth of a king's child. It should be noted here that there are other stellar marks which signify the birth of a woodsman's child, a pirate queen's child, and even a shepherdesses child. These ones however, aren't much noted, as the birth of a woodsman's child wasn't exactly a matter of political importance. What he saw that gave him such impetus to follow the wish of the matriarch (Plautia Savoro) was that he had an epiphany, and saw that those with(magical) powers often were born under this-or-that star. Thinking fast, he saw that if he could get the right people to have the right children at the right times, he could make one of the most powerful beings in existence!
Janus realized that this also was a way to get the matriarch(and the rest of the family, if they were as honest as she)'s wish. He was a magician of some power, able to influence the fates and actions of others by introducing elements that would encourage them down one path and render another forbidding and potentially even dangerous. So he set out at once to figure out, from as many vantage points as he could, when and where the children of the monarchs of the next two thousand years would be born(taking into account stellar drift), so he could get them to intermarry(or just breed, he didn't care) in more frequency and with greater...variety among houses. He managed to convince the majority of the non-isolationist royals within 30 years, laying spells on the houses of far-off lands that he couldn't get to himself to safely. Ironically, the matriarch's anger over the matter of her and her family being dethroned proved short-lived, as she found the business of guarding the river and trading with passing boats(the job the family took up after their fall from power) was both helpful to the community around the Aude river and let them take the active role in the area's well-being she had wished all along.
The family lived in peace for many years, weathering the perils of the Early Medieval Era under the attacks by the Turks and repeated invasions by the Vikings, not mention the manifold Continental powers that frequently attacked the city of Carcassonne. In 1793, however, the year the French Revolution broke out, twelve aristocrats, fleeing the violence of the country, found themselves in Janus's ancient villa. In the catacombs of the place, they found the perfectly (and magically) preserved map of the relationship between the royal lines of the world. Their lessons in Latin payed off handsomely for them, as they managed to decode the map and unravel exactly what Janus (who signed his name in the map's lower left corner) had planned on doing. Unfortunately for our hero's family, they failed to notice that Janus had explicitly done his work by magic, rather than physical action. As they had no idea that everything was in fact proceeding quite smoothly for Janus's plan, and that they would do more harm than help to it if they intervened, they stuck their oar in and began traveling the countryside of Europe digging up as much dirt as they could on all the royals they could find. What they did with said dirt need not be explicated. Their aim was to create the world's strongest super, like Janus. But their reasons for doing so boiled down more or less to snobbery and a proto-eugenic idea that such a being would be invaluable as a source of other supers. Christening themselves 'The Januii", they spun their webs and meddled as far as the thrones of China in things they had no understanding of, passing the job onto their children as they died.
Anyway, in 1987, on the same bank of the same river that his family had lived on for more than a millennium, Marceau was born to two people of very different backgrounds. His mother, Kioni, was of the ancient Sahelian Kingdom line, and a recent immigrant from Kenya. His father, Masud, on the other hand was of the same branch that the family patriarch Abelo had led, and had lived in France all his life. The joy that his parents felt at his successful birth was short-lived, however, as the agents of the Januii arrived only hours later, and demanded to Masud (who had answered their knocking) that he surrender his child. When he refused, they shot him unceremoniously, the Januii having forgotten to tell them they wanted no deaths if it could be avoided. Kioni, hearing the gunfire, grabbed whatever valuables she could along with Marceau, and escaped out a window and down a hill-side, taking the small sailboat she and Masud owned, she sailed across the sea to the coast of modern Algeria. Thinking it would be best to travel incognito, Kioni used some of her and Masud's assets to buy a camel and some random goods, which she carried along with Marceau across the Sahara in the direction of Timbuktu, where she had relatives with rumored supernatural powers. She managed to get within about twelve miles from the city, dodging the raiders and desert bandits the Januii hired to chase them up until October 31st, 1987.
Kioni and Marceau were finally caught while gathering water at a temporary oasis by thirteen desert bandits, all of whom had been hired by the previous assassins to finish the job. After a half-hour-long gun battle(Mrs. Suvou had also bought a rifle and several dozen rounds) around the oasis, Kioni had killed all but the scout who had discovered them and led the bandits to their location, but was herself mortally injured twice over. As the scout was beginning to aim his pistol at the lamed and slowly dying mother, he was stabbed in the back of his neck by a long knife. As the scout fell, killed instantly due to the damage to his brain stem, newlyweds Mossar and Erran An-Sallah, who had been drawn along with the small crowd of outskirt-dwellers by the gunfire, bent over Kioni. They saw that she was wounded almost to death by then, and in her last minutes she told them with agonized slowness of what had happened. Pledging to care for the child, the newlyweds buried Kioni in their family grave site. They raised the child as best as they could, and did a commendable job of it, raising him to be responsible for his actions from the age of 7, which was when his latent powers manifested, and to keep a tight rein on his powers until they grew beyond what the two were capable of keeping in check. However, they never told him he wasn't their son, though they gently discouraged him from making that assumption by the subtlest of distances.
When Marceau turned 9, the local super-team, the 'Cercle de la Fratrie'(4 shape-shifters and 2 air-controllers)., who policed the city of Timbuktu and most of North-Western Africa, agreed to train him in the finer usage of his powers. By the age of ten, he could incapacitate(with some effort) a fully grown adult human without outside help, so long as the other guy didn't have any aid himself. As he was returning to his home after a training session, he saw two armed men holding his adopters at gunpoint. A quick sneak attack laid them both out on the ground, stunned, and he destroyed their guns before their eyes. It turned out that the Januii had found out about their assassins' slacking, and had sent two of the original twelve to kill the child(the current leader was the son of the previous, and hadn't known Marceau was wanted alive). Realizing that if the Januii could send assassins to their door, the An-Sallah's s asked Marceau to leave, and keep danger from their door, telling him at last the event that led him to their hearth and home, and begging him to ask the Cercle for help, as they were themselves only low-ranking electrical technicians, and unable to defend him against hired killers. The Cercle couldn't take him either, as they were often required to travel vast distances, and thus couldn't count on always being there to protect him. After much consideration, they decided to send Marceau to a super team in Guangzhou called the "Zanghonghua Weidui', or 'Saffron Guard(2 flying bricks, an amphibious water-controller and 3 speedsters), by boat. Thinking he would be safer going the long way around, they got him a job on a freighter, the Sangerkrieg, bound for the city and carrying a couple hundred thousand tons of coal. His job was the simple, thankless yet necessary job of cleaning the sides of the tanker of barnacles and the occasional limpet.
The sea voyage passed uneventfully, practically the only part of Marceau's Eurasian odyssey that did. He lived only a few years in Guangzhou, as the Saffron Guard was swamped by calls for aid from all over the province of Guangdong. They decided(after the eighth time a wanna-be Dr. Sin tried to blow up their headquarters with Marceau in peril as a distraction) to send him south to the Laotion team Fifty Trumpets(fifty members, none with powers greater than slight emotion control). However, when he got to the rendezvous point in northern Cambodia, he joined for a time(or so he thought) the counter-revolutionary soldiers called the Tiger's Claw. They were(as he learned later) actually the Fifty Trumpets in disguise, to lend deniability to this operation. Their aim was to break the power of a warlord named Teng Zsi, and free the peasants under the rule of him and his minions. There, in the dense jungles filled with hungry tigers( he had the dubious pleasure of seeing a banteng cow get torn open by one), he developed a terror of forests that haunts him still, with him seeing to this day a luminous pair of green, hungry eyes in every bush. Not helping with his mental health was the fact that the Tiger's Claws used distinctly martial avenues of ousting Teng, The resultant hails of gunfire, impromptu introduction to the horrors of war, and the fact that he was barely a teenager, all conspired against him ever leaving the murderous jungle. The saving grace that kept him safe from Teng's minions for most of the sixteen-month conflict was his rapidly-developed tactical mind, not to mention his carrying capacity began to increase exponentially during his time in Cambodia, leaving him far more useful as a tactical consultant and courier of soldiers and gear than as a sniper. During a break in the gunfire, Marceau and three others chanced upon the mansion of one of Ace Danger's old foes from the 20's, whose house had become haunted by the spirit of a disgruntled servant. After exorcising it, a great trove of treasures( to Marceau's eyes) found, including his first-ever exposure to silent film and fine statuary. He still has around a dozen small statuettes, and an entire door from the mansion.
His wanderings after the Fifty Trumpets melted back into Laos upon completion were much less focused after that. The 'Trumpets passed him off to the super-groups in the 'Stan's, where Marceau learned he had a good throwing arm through games of pick-up baseball. He lived in India for half a year with the super-team "Eyara Janakarom", or 'Air-Watchers'(flyers all) who then passed him off to a super-team in Russia, where he learned endurance against the cold equal to that he had acquired against the heat of the desert. He arrived(after passing through Greece) in Kosovo in 2005, in which year he met and became the apprentice of the Ace of Suits. The Ace of Suits was a protege of the second Raven, a martial-artist who had assisted in the cleanup of a slavery ring in 2001, and had at the encouragement of the Raven taken up the cape and cowl to defend the Balkans against all evil-doers. He met Marceau when the latter was being threatened by a group of ten gun-wielding hooligans, and the young man had been running from them for around fifteen minutes. Exhausted, Marceau was gathering himself for a surge of power that likely would have killed him as well as his enemies when the Ace of Suits sprang onto the scene. The Ace knocked eight of the ten unconscious in around four seconds, leaving the last two blasted into a wall by the surprised but grateful Frenchman. The Ace revealed his assumed title, and offered the younger man a place in his gang of crime-fighters. Eager to repay the Ace's kindness, Marceau readily agreed, and spent until the June of 2007 working under the intrepid crime-buster. at long last he took his leave of the super-team House o' Suits, arriving back at his birthplace in Aude a month later.
The first thing that happened upon his arrival, annoyingly enough, was that a small squad of mercenaries tried to kill him in the half-abandoned hotel he was staying at. The placed a number of explosive charges around his door, and called on him to show himself when they heard him stirring within. Our hero had, fortunately enough, heard one of the conduttori when he tripped over a fold in the hall carpet, and had observed the setting of the charges through the spy hole in the door. When called upon, he told them that he knew who they were(not actually a lie, they had called each other by name several times), that he knew who sent them, and that the charges they had set were not nearly enough to kill him. He then, having affixed his bed sheets to the door, pulled it open and jumped out the window, grabbing onto another line of bedsheets hanging out of said window. He had landed lightly and watched in amusement as the sell-swords ran in a blind panic. He was less amused when he had to stay at the hotel and work off the damage to the hotel. While still in Auden, he happened to find the ancient villa owned by Janus, and found the star map still within, the Januii having made rough copies of it. They had also left behind a small book that translated the various symbols Janus had used to sort out who had what child with whom, and through it, Marceau abruptly found his place in the puzzle: the second-to-last.
As it turned out, the Januii had badly mucked up the plan. They had gone with the idea that the time of conception didn't matter, and that all that was needed was to have two astrologically-compatible people have a child together and that was all. As a result, Marceau, who had been scheduled to be the father of the strongest creature the world had ever seen, was not only impotent(childhood accident easily foreseeable through his stars), but bound to a much slower process of attaining his powers, meaning the timescale was utterly broken beyond all repair. He also found, in a crevice overlooked by centuries of visitors, a metal mask in the shape of a grinning face eerily like his, nearly unbreakable, which he wears to this day as a disguise, with no idea of its true power to strike fear into the hearts of others, though that day approaches.
Taking the map with him, as a curio, Marceau then set himself to work finding gainful employment. It wasn't hard, but due to his lack of official education, it was greatly limited in what he could do. One thing he did do, however, learn English, hearing that the land of America was a place brimming with wealth, and eager to employ anyone with the right education(it should be noted that his source wasn't exactly infallible). Thinking it would be a good idea to start fresh, Marceau set sail for America in 2008, and spent most of that year near starvation. He wandered south from Maine, slowly picking up an increasing 'posse' of homeless, harmless crazies and the generally unlucky in life. Today, he works as a janitor at an office building, a humble job that just barely pays enough for the needs of him and his gang. He is not nearly satisfied with this state of affairs, however, and knows that many others suffer as much if not more than he, and thus takes to the streets of Downtown Freedom City bearing the cloak of the House of Suits, a hunter of those who prey upon the unfortunate, the King of Suits.
In mid-summer of 2011, for some reason his powers vanished without a trace, and his specialized weapons were destroyed in a rather embarrassing accident, forcing Marceau to rely much more heavily on his training and skills, with what small armaments he can acquire until he can replenish his weaponry.[/spoiler]
[b][u]Personality & Motivation:[/u][/b] Marceau is usually brisk and cheerful, seeing no reason to dwell on misfortune or become over-demonstrative of one's feelings, although he is still as vulnerable as any other human to irrational emotional responses. He tries to deal with the smaller aspects of crime-fighting that are sometimes forgotten such as mundane theft, and is now much more cautious now that his powers have vanished without a trace, something he is ambivalent towards, as while it has given him more time to his training, his people skills have suffered slightly.
[b][u]Powers & Tactics:[/u][/b] Marceau's favored tactic is to make his way to a suitable hiding spot and launch a sneak attack against any opponents he can manage, disarming any with firearms he can beforehand. If caught in the open he'll try to escape to a place where he can use his experience with ranged weapons to even the odds. If trapped, he'll use a smokebomb to blind his enemies before attempting to subdue all opponents around him with whatever Stuns, Paralytics, Bolos or punches to the sternum will defeat them quickest and quietest. He finds lengthy battles increasingly difficult to fight, meaning he relies overmuch on quick defeats to win his battles.
[b][u]Complications:[/u][/b]
Phobia: Terrified of forests, as he lived most of his life in them throughout Southeast Asia.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: His nerve-wracking months in Cambodia have not failed to leave their mark on Marceau's psyche, sharp clashs of metal, gunfire, and just being near a forest can cause him to suffer flashbacks to those days, often causing him to act in an outwardly irrational manner.
Responsibility: Caring for the needy, especially his 'posse' of sundry homeless, harmless lunatics and underemployed vagrants who have latched onto him as their protector against street-gangs and minor organized criminals. If any threat comes against them, Marceau feels honor-bound to aid them.
Secret: Identity.
Struggling: Maintenance work doesn't pay much.
[b][u]Abilities:[/u][/b] 8 + 10 + 8 + 10 + 0 + 4 = 40PP
Strength 18 (+4)
Dexterity 20 (+5)
Constitution 18 (+4)
Intelligence 20 (+5)
Wisdom 10 (+0)
Charisma 14 (+2)
[b][u]Combat:[/u][/b] 16 + 16 = 32PP
Initiative: +9
Attack: +8, +16 Unarmed, +12 Boomerangs
Grapple: +12
Defense: +14 (+8 Base, +6 Dodge Focus), +4 Flat-Footed
Knockback: -3, -2 Unarmored
[b][u]Saving Throws:[/u][/b] 5 + 8 + 11 = 24PP
Toughness: +8 (+4 Con, +4 Costume)
Fortitude: +9 (+4 Con, +5)
Reflex: +13 (+5 Dex, +8)
Will: +11 (+0 Wis, +11)
[b][u]Skills:[/u][/b] 144R = 36PP
Acrobatics 10 (+15)
Bluff 8 (+10)
Climb 6 (+10)
Craft(Chemical) 4 (+9)
Diplomacy 4 (+6)
Disable Device 5 (+10)
Escape Artist 5 (+10)
Gather Information 13 (+15)
Intimidate 13 (+15)Skill Mastery
Investigate 10 (+15)Skill Mastery
Knowledge (Streetwise) 10 (+15)Skill Mastery
Knowledge (Tactics) 10 (+15)
Languages 8 (Arabic, English, French [Native], Greek, Hindi, Malay, Mandarin, Russian, Serbian)
Notice 10 (+10)
Search 10 (+15)
Sense Motive 8 (+8)
Stealth 10 (+15)Skill Mastery
[b]Feats:[/b] 41PP
Attack Specialization (Boomerangs) 2
Attack Specialization (Unarmed) 4
Dodge Focus 6
Defensive Roll
Equipment 8 (40EP)
Evasion
Improved Initiative
Jack of All Trades
Luck 2
Master Plan 2
Power Attack
Quick Draw
Redirect
Setup
Sneak Attack
Skill Mastery (Intimidate, Investigate, Knowledge [Streetwise], Stealth)
Startle 2 (Move Action)
Takedown Attack
Throwing Mastery 2
Uncanny Dodge(hearing)
Well-Informed
Equipment 8PP = 40EP wrote:
Binoculars[1EP]
Concealable Microphones[1EP]
Flashlight[1EP]
Gas Mask [1EP]
Handcuffs[1EP]
Mini-Tracers[1EP]
Multitool[1EP]
Night-Vision Goggles[1EP]
Protection 4 (Feats: Subtle) [5EP] (Costume w/armor underlay)
Re-breathers[1EP]
Super-Movement 3 (Slow Fall, Swinging, Wall-Crawling) [6EP] (Grapple-Gun)
[b]Utility Belt 8[/b] (16PP Array, Feats: Alternate Power 4) [20EP]
Base Power: [b]Blast 5[/b] (10 80ft Range Increments / 800ft Max Range, Feats: Homing, Improved Ranged Disarm, Mighty 4) [16EP] (Boomerangs)
Alternate Power: [b]Blast 5[/b] (10 60ft Range Increments / 600ft Max Range, Extras: Penetrating [DMG 10, 12 Sneak Attack], Feats: Mighty ) [16EP] (Razor Cards)
Alternate Power: [b]Dazzle 5[/b] (Auditory & Visual Senses) [15EP] (Flash-Bang Grenades)
Alternate Power: [b]Obscure 5[/b] (Visual Senses, 100ft radius, Extras: Independent) [10EP] (Smoke Cards)
Alternate Power: [b]Snare 8[/b] [16EP] (Bolos)
1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 5 + 6 + 20 = 40/40EP
[b][u]Powers:[/u][/b] 3PP
Descriptors: Natural, Training.
[b]Immunity 2[/b] (Cold, Heat) [2PP]
[b]Speed 1[/b] (10 MPH) [1PP]
Drawbacks: -0PP
None
DC Block:
[code]ATTACK RANGE SAVE EFFECT
Unarmed Touch DC19(21*) Toughness (Staged) Damage (Physical)
Boomerang Ranged DC24(26*) Toughness (Staged) Damage (Physical)
Dazzle Ranged DC15 Fortitude Dazzled
Razor Cards Ranged DC21(23*) Toughness (Staged) Damage (Physical)
*Sneak Attack
Totals: Abilities (40) + Combat (32) + Saving Throws (24) + Skills (36) + Feats (41) + Powers (3) - Drawbacks (0) = 176/176 Power Points
