NPC Hero: Elemental Champion of Water -- Part 2

Okay, so continuing from the post almost a month ago, I began listing the most appropriate HERO power mechanics to match the abilities I came up with. At the same time, I started to adjust the character concept -- partially due to natural concept refinement, partially due to the need to fit a complete character into the overall point totals.

I start with the "Torrent Raider" abilities, which are water elemental related powers skewed towards a rogue-ish portfolio:

TORRENT RAIDER Abilities

"Body of Water" - an ability to transform her body into a liquid, making her impervious to most damage

• Desolid - the classic intangibility power, and also allows the 'walk through walls' type of ability though it'll probably be blocked by airtight or watertight barriers
• 75% rPD & 75% rED - when attacked, some damage bleeds through, but the remainder passes harmlessly through her after she flickers into her waterform

"Lady of the Lake" - an ability to become invisible by receding into a nearby body of water, and even to skip to other bodies of water and emerge there.

• Invisibility - slides into the water and disappears, except for ripples
• Teleport - jumps to another body of water, and remains hidden till she emerges.

"Ripple sense" - allows the ability to sense water in the immediate area, and the ability to sense in a 360 degree arc movement in water (Sense + Analyze)

"Scry Water" - allows her to sense things near bodies of water (Clairsentience)

"Fathom form" -  allows her to deal with breathing underwater, the pressure, and the temperature extremes in the deeps of the water (Life Support)

NPC Hero: Elemental Champion of Water -- Part 1

Haven't built a new Champions character in a while, so I'm going to start off with the character concept. I have a name -- Alena -- but she's going to have a superheroic alter-ego: the Torrent Rider.

Please be warned that none of what follows has anything to do with the original TV show. I'm just using some elements from the show and twisting them or infusing them with other weirdness.

Overall Concept

My view on her is as the black sheep of the sisterhood blessed with the Elemental Jewels. All sisters are charged with mastery of their assigned Jewels before they may ascend once more to the Enchanted Realm. In order to master the Jewels, they must learn and master facets of the Jewels (some large, some small) and gain the abilities hidden within each.

Her original facet of the Jewel of Water was that of the Torrent Raider -- mostly abilities associated with thieving and raiding.

The current facet she's working on is that of the Torrent Rider -- abilities associated with mobility, kinship and control over water creatures, navigation, sensory gifts, and a legendary mount: the First Sea Serpent known as Fars.

Her mother also gifted her with an weapon: a hafted weapon known as the Hydra's Tooth. Among many things, it allows her to summon the Second Sea Serpent (known as Larwi) to do her bidding.

Offensive Capabilities

Aside from some rudimentary fighting skills as befits a spunky and rebellious young woman, her primary attack powers stem from three sources:

• the First Sea Serpent -- special attack powers against preternatural creatures and spirits;
• the Hydra's Tooth -- a powerful weapon that deals physical damage to foes;
• and the Second Sea Serpent -- a huge serpent that, when summoned, can perform feats of great strength and lay waste to enemies over a great area.

Defensive Capabilities

The First Sea Serpent grants her great agility in battle, due to its sinuous grace and terrible speed, but when necessary, it encloses her in an impervious sphere reminiscent of a perfectly shaped pearl.

The Hydra's Tooth grants her rapid healing from any physical damage.

The facet of the Torrent Raider also grants her the ability to temporarily become water, usually in the form of mist or sea foam, before reincorporating into her humanoid form.

Movement Capabilities

She can swim really fast, as per both facets of the Jewel. But the First Sea Serpent grants her flight and even faster swimming.

Special abilities

Needs to be able to breathe under water, can endure extremes of temperature and crushing pressures of the deep. Can see in near darkness, and can sense the movement of things in water.

She can also communicate with family and friends, and do some scrying using pools of still water.

The Torrent Raider aspect should grant her stealth and infiltration abilities, as well as the ability to appropriate things that don't belong to her.

Wrapping Up

Okay, so that's pretty clear in terms of concept. It's a bit messy, but I wanted to do a more mythologically-based water superheroine. I don't know if I can pay for everything, but I do like the summoning and control of the Sea Serpents. Eventually, she should be able to summon all Seven Sea Serpents once she's mastered the Hydra's Tooth, and the facets of the Jewel should grant her even more watery abilities.

Next up for this character: Point Building!

Character Creation: Animal Themed Supers

One of the most common sources of inspiration for superheroic characters, aside from pre-existing superheroes in comics, is the animal kingdom.

And yet, creating an animal-themed superhero isn't necessarily as simple or simplistic as choosing a cool animal and naming your character after it. There are many approaches to animal-themed characters, but we can group them into three somewhat loose categories: animal-inspired, animal-infused, animal-inherent.

Animal-inspired

This refers to animal-themed characters who take on the name and the look of certain animals in their superheroic personas, without a very strong tie to the specific animal.

One good example of this is Batman, who didn't gain powers after being bitten by a radioactive bat, but instead took on the look of one in order to scare criminals (a superstitious, cowardly lot). Aside from the general bat-like look, the cave and the occasional bat-named gadget, the character is really more of a dark knight detective / caped crusader.

Another somewhat surprising example of this would be Wolverine. This short and ornery mutant with adamantium claws and a healing factor doesn't seem to have taken much from his namesake (wolverines are essentially badgers with worse attitudes) aside from being irascible and having claws. To top it off, he is sometimes shown in pictures alongside wolves -- which of course are not wolverines.

Animal-infused

This refers to animal-themed characters who actually have some claim to the abilities of their namesakes or have some kinship with them.

Spider-man is the classic example of this, thanks to that irradiated spider that bit him and passed on abilities that could arguably be considered as spidery abilities: wall-crawling (cool), proportional strength (ok, sure), spider-sense (uh, what?). Furthermore, he completes the ensemble with invented web-shooters and web-formula to show his dedication to the spider theme.

Hawkman can sometimes be considered to have this, depending on the incarnation of the character in DC Comics. At one time, not only did he fly and have keen eyesight -- he also had the ability to talk to birds! Of course, his huge arsenal of weapons borrows more from the metaphorical connotations of hawks (war-oriented), and he sometimes comes across like Conan with wings, but there's no denying the strong infusion of "hawk-ness" in the character.
 
Animal-inherent

This refers to animal-themed characters who seem have been turned into animals themselves, or have actual animal abilities, or were animals that became humanoid.

Spider-man, at certain points in his career, became like this -- when he sprouted extra limbs for example.

The Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles are another example of this, having been regular turtles before a radioactive isotope that blinded a lawyer further up the street found its way to them and mutated them. While it may be argued that ninjitsu and a fondness for pizza are not very turtle-like, there's considerable weight on the turtleness to keep them in this category.

Kemlo "Hyperdog" Caesar from Alan Moore's Top 10 is another example of an animal-inherent character. In fact, he's essentially an uplifted dog. Out of his suit -- which lets him walk around, manipulate things with fingers, and generally look like a human with a head of a dog -- Kemlo actually seems to be just that: a dog (who's really smart and can talk).

Lycanthropes fall into this category as well, naturally. In fact, it seems that the battle between human nature and beast nature is a common trope of this type of character.

Beyond these categories

There are several types of animal-themed characters that may fall between the cracks of these categories, based on where you want to draw the line.

However, there are metahumans that are able to draw from multiple animal abilities and can be considered to draw from all or none of these categories: the meta-animal superhumans.


Beast Boy / Changeling was able to shapeshift into different creatures from the animal kingdom. Early versions of him had him with the natural form of the animal with green-faced head grafted on top of it. Later versions of him had him look like a normal -- albeit emerald-green colored -- animal.


Animal Man was able to draw upon the abilities of any nearby animal. He could fly if near birds, run a proportional speeds if near ants, gain the senses of various animals when investigating. In many ways, he was like Vixen, who used her Tantu Totem to also draw upon aspects of various beasts.


Last, but not least, there's B'wana Beast. Who had the ability to physically combine different animals together, and retaining the best abilities of each. Like horses and spiders, or sharks and pelicans. Wow, nothing creepy there at all.

On Character Generation and Character Creation

Some game systems have character generation mechanisms -- random elements are used over choice for certain aspects of the process of putting together a character. For the classic D&D systems, this includes random die rolls for stats (which, if done with a 3d6, in-sequence approach, ends up narrowing your choices for your character class as well). For classic Traveller, it determined whether or not you survived that extra tour of duty that would have given you another rank in a skill you were after.

Some game systems have character creation mechanisms -- usually point-buying attributes, skills, and special abilities. GURPS and HERO are the most well-known ones in this arena, given their 'universal' approach to different settings and genres. Less well known are other point-buy systems like EABA, and the incredibly fast choose a template and add 6 dice to skills approach of the West End Games D6 Star Wars RPG.

I like both of these, but now I'm also looking at systems like HeroQuest which I seem to approach character creation as a sort of 'broadstrokes' character definition approach, and then performing some character refinement during play. It is a more narrative-oriented approach, but it does allow for quick character creation in addition to being able to having some wiggle room to give a character something he should already have (but we forgot to buy it) and to allow a character to break the stereotypes and molds that they sometimes fall into.

The main reason I'm doing this: curiosity.

While character generation forced players to sort of adapt to whatever good or bad luck they experienced and character creation forced players to really think about all the capabilities of their character (and possibly be disappointed when they either run of points, or discover that the system doesn't quite reflect their character as effectively as it should) -- what will a character definition / character refinement approach do?