Characters for the record

SYSTEM: ICONS

Mike Lafferty has started an ICONS random character thread over on RPG.net, and I've contributed two, so far.

Because it's murder trying to search for a particular thread over there, here are my two, in case I ever need them. Hagfish can be easily transformed into a villain.

Displace (Origin Birthright)

Secret ID: Kathryn Helprin, Attorney

Attributes
Prowess Fair 4
Coordination Good 5
Strength Incredible 7
Intellect Fair 4
Awareness Good 5
Willpower Fair 4
Stamina 11
Determination 2

Powers
Adaptation Good 5
Blast Good 5
Absorption Average 5 (Absorbed energy goes to teleportation as a reaction, which is limited by the fact that she can't control it the first time. On succeeding panels she can.) Extra: Reaction Limit: First is uncontrolled.*

Specialities
Law

Qualities
Attorney at law
Look before you leap
Superhero-ing is a kick

Kathryn Helprin knew there was mutant ancestry in her family, and she knew she was strong and could generate a blast of energy....but that's not really enough in her mind to fight crime. (Kathryn is often the victim of analysis paralysis.) She didn't know she had the ability to adapt to harsh environments because she had never been in a harsh environment (she had never left home without her coat!).

Then Doctor Megaton broke out of confinement and attacked the city. She just had to help. A bunch of costumed heroes eventually stopped Doctor Megaton, but Kathryn helped. A bit.

She learned a couple of things that day: First, helping feels great. Second, if she gets hit with kinetic energy (like, say, bullets), she gains the ability to teleport for a short time. (How long depends on the amount she was hit with.) It's her body saying, "Get out of the way!" She can't control the first one: it's automatic.

Third, she learned that she was going to keep doing it.

As Displace, she hides her identity, because of non-interference rules of the law society. (She hopes some day to work for the District Attorney's office.)

* Someone who knows the exact limits of her abilities just floods the area with .22 caliber bullets, so she can't actually control the teleportation: it doesn't help if it only lasts one panel. So she's stuck there, teleporting helplessly. That's deathtrap material!

Hagfish (No other ID)

Origin Artificial
Attributes
Prowess Good 5
Coordination Fair 4
Strength Fair 5+2=7
Intellect Good 4
Awareness Good 5
Willpower Good 5
Determination 3
Stamina 12

Powers
Life Support Amazing 8
Affliction Great 6
Binding Incredible 7 Limit: Only in water

Specialities
Underwater Combat

Qualities
Knows the world-that-was, not the world-that-is
In the uncanny valley
A protector must protect

It was a protector, guarding the undersea temple or vault of the aquatic ones. They built it and gave it the spark of illness (the affliction) and the ability to coagulate water like a hagfish turns water into slime--except its "slime" is harder than concrete. The aquatic ones--he has no name for them, but he obeys them--wanted him to function on land and water, so they used a hominid for a model.

A troop of Sthanii came to plunder the temple. It chased them up, on land, to a cave--and a rockslide imprisoned it for centuries.

A recent earthquake freed him. The temple is long gone. Some of its contents might still exist--but a protector needs something, somewhere, to protect. Despite the name they gave it, it protects this city. 

Haemophile
Origin Birthright

Attributes
Prowess Good 5
Coordination Average 3
Strength Good 5
Intellect Average 3
Awareness Average 3
Willpower Good 5
Stamina: 10
Determination: -

Powers
Invisibility Good 5
Strike (Slash) Great 6
Extra: Secondary Effect: Affliction Incredible 7

Specialties
Martial Arts
Stealth

Qualities
Idealizes "normal"
Mid-level assassin
She's the only one immune to her poison

Chloe Grace was fifteen when the claws first appeared, walking down a train embankment on a shortcut. She learned to make the claws retract. She was on her third date with Carlos Estevez when she turned invisible. She learned to reappear, to look normal, but by then she knew she wasn't normal. The poison appeared a year later, nearly killing Jacob Henshaw. It was okay with Chloe if he died; he was a dirtbag who had never treated her right.

At seventeen, the organization contacted her. Opportunities for a lower-class girl are limited, but those for a girl with a death touch are a bit...richer. She doesn't get sent against supers--no, she's a stealth versus normals kind of assassin.

If you survive her poison once, you're not immune (well, unless you have Life Support vs toxins). The chemical makeup changes with her diet, so it's never the same twice.