The X-men run missions and work together with the NYPD, striving to maintain a peaceful balance between humans and mutants. When it comes to a fight, they won't back down from protecting those who need their help.
Haven presents itself as a humanitarian organization for activists, leaders, and high society, yet mutants are the secret leaders working to protect and serve their kind. Behind the scenes they bring their goals into reality.
From the time when mutants became known to the world, SUPER was founded as a black-ops division of the CIA in an attempt to classify, observe, and learn more about this new and rising threat.
The Syndicate works to help bring mutantkind to the forefront of the world. They work from the shadows, a beacon of hope for mutants, but a bane to mankind. With their guiding hand, humanity will finally find extinction.
Since the existence of mutants was first revealed in the nineties, the world has become a changed place. Whether they're genetic misfits or the next stage in humanity's evolution, there's no denying their growing numbers, especially in hubs like New York City. The NYPD has a division devoted to mutant related crimes. Super-powered vigilantes help to maintain the peace. Those who style themselves as Homo Superior work to tear society apart for rebuilding in their own image.
MRO is an intermediate to advanced writing level original character, original plot X-Men RPG. We've been open and active since October of 2005. You can play as a mutant, human, or Adapted— one of the rare humans who nullify mutant powers by their very existence. Goodies, baddies, and neutrals are all welcome.
Short Term Plots:Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
The Fountain of Youth
A chemical serum has been released that's shaving a few years off of the population. In some cases, found to be temporary, and in others...?
MRO MOVES WITH CURRENT TIME: What month and year it is now in real life, it's the same for MRO, too.
Fuegogrande: "Fuegogrande" player of The Ranger, Ion, Rhia, and Null
Neopolitan: "Aly" player of Rebecca Grey, Stephanie Graves, Marisol Cervantes, Vanessa Bookman, Chrysanthemum Van Hart, Sabine Sang, Eupraxia
Ongoing Plots
Magic and Mystics
After the events of the 2020 Harvest Moon and the following Winter Solstice, magic has started manifesting in the MROvere! With the efforts of the Welldrinker Cult, people are being converted into Mystics, a species of people genetically disposed to be great conduits for magical energy.
The Pharoah Dynasty
An ancient sorceress is on a quest to bring her long-lost warrior-king to the modern era in a bid for global domination. Can the heroes of the modern world stop her before all is lost?
Are They Coming for You?
There have been whispers on the streets lately of a boogeyman... mutant and humans, young and old, all have been targets of trafficking.
Adapteds
What if the human race began to adapt to the mutant threat? What if the human race changed ever so subtly... without the x-gene.
Atlanteans
The lost city of Atlantis has been found! Refugees from this undersea mutant dystopia have started to filter in to New York as citizens and businessfolk. You may make one as a player character of run into one on the street.
Got a plot in mind?
MRO plots are player-created the Mods facilitate and organize the big ones, but we get the ideas from you. Do you have a plot in mind, and want to know whether it needs Mod approval? Check out our plot guidelines.
So, I'm going to be introducing Andy some time soon, and want to do an intro scene where he shows up at the ruins of the Mansion in the hopes of finding the X-Men, which he totally no-really honest-to-god golly-gee-whillikers wouldn't-it-be-great-if wants to join.
I'd sorta prefer to do this _with_ someone, since RPing by myself isn't so much fun, and I'd especially love to have Andy actually meet one of the X-Men, or at least one of the Mansion residents.
Are there any PCs who are (a) X-men or reasonable fascimiles, (b) not stuck in the Camps, (c) active, and (d) interested? If so, PM me?
Caveat: Andy is, at least at first, going to be (IC) somewhat difficult to communicate with, what with the uncontrollable superspeed. Think in terms of having a conversation with someone being fast-forwarded by a factor of two or three... he tries to talk... really... slowly... so... people... can... understand... him...
, but, well, you know how it is. If you think this would be frustrating for you, you have been warned!
Proposed Attributes Physical Strength = 7 (normal human who exercises a lot) Agility = 25 (some acrobatic/gymnastic skill, but mostly it’s his mutation making him much, much, MUCH faster than a normal human) Mental Strength = 3 (somewhat below average… he is smart, but easy to manipulate) Stealth = 3 (he can’t sit/stand still for long) Senses = 10 (his mutation lets him study things for subjectively longer than normal, so he tends to spot things a normal human wouldn’t) Mutated Strength = 0 (all his powers fall into the above categories) Mutated Control = 2 (he can increase and decrease his speed factor, but he can’t turn it off or affect its range)
Hobbies: Andy has an enormous amount of free time (subjective) on his hands and spends it doing a variety of things. He tends to pick up interests and obsess about them for a while, then move on.
He reads a lot, on a wide range of topics – usually library books, since he’d fill up his apartment pretty quickly otherwise, and stuff on the Internet. He also spends a LOT of time posting on Internet sites about subjects that interest him… some of this he does using his real name, most of it he doesn’t.
He’s very into physical exercise and outdoor activity (running, swimming, endurance hikes, camping, spelunking, etc.) but avoids anything that depends on gear (like bicycling, for example), as it tends to break or jam on him. He is adept at woods survival (Boy Scout type stuff) and once spent the subjective equivalent of three weeks living entirely off the land.
He has tried for years to adopt a meditation practice, in the hopes that it will let him control his mutation. He’s had some success with it, but not very much. He keeps trying, though.
He likes food. This is in part making a virtue of necessity, given the demands of his metabolism, but beyond that he enjoys experimenting with new cuisines, trying foods he’s never eaten before, etc. He’s no gourmet chef, but he’s a very competent amateur cook.
He downloads a lot of porn. He’d be mortified if anyone found out about this.
All of that said, his favorite hobby, without question, is superheroing. He patrols the streets at night like a comic-book character, looking for muggings and bank robberies and whatever. Most nights he doesn’t find anything, of course, but he enjoys looking and it gives him something to do when he’s bored. Along the way he tends to do miscellaneous good deeds… fixing broken car engines, bringing blankets and food to homeless people, that sort of thing. (Lately he’s been taking to leaving calling cards with the name “Speed” on them behind when he does this.)
Other Notes:
His parents (Barry and Linda) are wealthy white South African immigrants. While Andy does not have direct access to that wealth (being legally a minor child) he nevertheless does not have to worry about money. He is very close to his parents, and generally tells them what’s going on in his life; they aren’t entirely thrilled with this “superhero” thing of his but their basic attitude is that he has to do something worthwhile with his life and his mutation makes a number of more traditional choices unavailable. He lives in a Manhattan condo that his parents own, into which he moved fairly recently. He used to live in Boston but he’s heard there’s more of a mutant community in New York.
His primary language is English but he speaks reasonably fluent Afrikaans and a smattering of German.
He was raised in the Dutch Reformed Church and more generally identifies as Protestant, although he doesn’t attend services and has grown alienated from the church because of its position on the Mutant Registration Act and mutants in general.
He has two older brothers: one 17 (Nathan), one 21 (Barry, Jr.). Of course, they aren’t really “older” anymore. He gets along with them OK, but they aren’t really close.
He is largely ignorant of television, theater, movies, and most other dynamic media… they just aren’t worth watching in slow motion. When he knows he likes a particular performer or show or whatever he obtains digital recordings and then plays them at very high speeds, but this is enough of a pain that he rarely bothers. Music, on the other hand, is not a problem – he downloads everything to a portable MP3 player which he carries around and thus operates on his subjective time.
He does not keep his mutation secret, and in fact will often bring it up in conversation. A halfway diligent Google search will discover it, and it doesn’t take a genius to conclude that “Andy Richter” and “Speed” are the same person. He’s never actually admitted to it in a public context (it just doesn’t feel right), but he doesn’t really expect it to be a secret. He even participates in a number of Internet forums using “speed” as a handle. He registered as a mutant when the MRA was passed, but his parents pulled some strings to keep him out of the camps. He feels vaguely guilty about this, now that he knows what went on in the camps.
He really likes snakes; they’re his favorite animal. Mostly this is because He owns several.
His favorite flavor of ice cream is mint chocolate chip, his favorite pizza toppings are mushroom and pepperoni, he loves cheese and hot mustards and Portuguese sweet bread.
He has a serious fanboy crush on Charlize Theron. He owns high-speed digital copies of everything she has ever appeared in (including cutting-room outtakes and various other things not normally available) and runs a Charlize Theron fan site (which he maintains in both English and Afrikaans), he got a personal response to one of his fan letters once, which is one of his prized possessions. He does think she’s silly for being part of PETA, but would be willing to overlook that should she ever come to her senses, dump her boyfriend, and ask him out. He’s not insane or stalkerish about it or anything, but he does border on the creepy. Still, cut the kid some slack, it’s not like he has many real friends. This too shall pass.
He is absolutely convinced he can learn to use his mutation to fly, and experiments with this on a regular basis, thus far with no success. (I don’t ever intend for him to succeed.)
Andy is a speedster. More precisely, he can accelerate the flow of time around his body so that he experiences time much more quickly than his surroundings. The ratio of personal time to objective time (aka his “speed factor”) varies. For example, a speed factor of 20 means that from an outside perspective he seems to move 20 times faster than his own perspective. Even when unconscious or sleeping he floats between SF 2 and 5… he can’t get slower than that. His maximum SF is roughly 100, though he can’t keep that up for more than a few seconds (subjective).
His ability affects his body and anything he carries or wears.
When he interacts with objects in the world, objective momentum is conserved; this results in some counterintuitive effects. For example, suppose he’s running what would ordinarily be a 6-minute mile (10 mph). If he boosts his speed factor to 10, it will take him 3 minutes to run a mile, so in a sense he’s traveling at 20 mph. But if he runs into something, the effect is exactly the same as if he had no speed factor, because objective momentum is conserved. So he can run into a wall at an objective speed of 100mph and come off with nothing but a bruised forehead… on the other hand, it means if he tackles someone at 20 mph he doesn’t hit any harder than a normal person.
Relatedly, external forces accelerate him based on objective time, no matter his speed factor. This, also, results in counterintuitive effects. For example, suppose he falls off a 80-meter building: he accelerates at 10 m/s^2 just like anything else, so it takes him 4 seconds to hit the ground with an objective velocity of 40 m/s. If his speed factor is 20, then it will seem to him to take 80 seconds, so he’ll feel like he floats down to the ground, light as a feather. At which point he will SPLAT against the sidewalk just like anybody else would, though he’ll have longer to feel himself dying. (He did something like this once to experiment, though from a much lower height, and broke both his legs in the process.)
Limitations of ability
Maintaining a speed factor higher than 5 or so is fatiguing; the higher the SF the more fatiguing it is. At low levels it’s roughly comparable to a brisk walk or jog, which he can keep going for quite a while. At higher levels it’s like full-out sprinting; he can keep it up for a matter of minutes at most. At really high levels he pretty much passes out immediately thereafter.
Andy’s body follows the laws of physics (unlike many traditional comic-book speedsters). That means he can’t do things like run across liquid surfaces, run up the sides of buildings, fly by rotating himself like a helicopter, etc. etc. etc. As described earlier, he doesn’t hit any harder than a normal person, no matter what his SF. Rule of thumb: anything he couldn’t do normally, he can’t do while accelerated, it’s just that it takes him less time to do it. Relatedly, unlike many comic-book speedsters, he experiences his subjective time normally. So anything that he wouldn’t normally spend an hour doing, he won’t spend a subjective hour doing, even if it “only takes him a minute” objectively at SF 60. (Not to mention that simply staying at SF 60 for a subjective hour feels like running a marathon, never mind whatever he might do during that time.)
The fact that his subjective time runs faster than normal is not an unmixed blessing. For example, his speed factor averages around 3 when he’s not actively using his power, so ordinarily he has to sleep for 2-3 hours every 8 hours or so, needs to eat every couple of hours, etc. This makes interacting with the normal world problematic. This is especially a problem if he’s poisoned or something; he has much less (objective) time to seek a cure than normal people would. The most dramatic effect of this is his age… in the year or so since his mutation surfaced, he has aged almost a decade. At that rate he’d be dead of old age by 2015; he’s managed to get his average speed factor down significantly since then but is still aging much faster than normal. Relatedly, because he can’t bring his speed factor lower than 2 no matter how hard he tries, and is usually operating between SF 2 and 5, he has a very hard time interacting with people – basically, everyone around him is moving in slow motion as far as he’s concerned, all the time, which makes them very difficult to interact with.
( So, it’s still too early to start posting with Andy, but I figured I’d put his profile out there. It has already been approved, I’m just waiting to hit the 300-post mark. Also, it’s in several pieces because it’s long.)
Character's “real” name: William Andrew Richter, “Andy” to his friends, “William” to his family Gender: Male
Codename/Alias: Andy has gone through a couple of dozen codenames in the last few years, depending on his mood and what he’s been reading recently. There was the comic/cartoon-inspired phase (“Flash”, “Quicksilver”, “Speed Racer”, etc.), the physics-text-inspired phase (“Velocity”, “Impulse”, “Delta-V”, “Accelerator”, etc.), the mythology/fiction-inspired phase (“Hermes”, “Mercury”, “Shadowfax”, “Seagull,” etc.), and many more. The majority of these codenames didn’t actually last long enough for him to tell anyone about them. Lately he’s been using “Speed”, which has actually lasted several weeks at this point and might be a keeper.
Age: complicated . Andy was born at 2:13 AM (EST) on Nov 26 1993, which makes him 14 legally. However, due to the time dilation associated with his mutation, he is physically and cognitively significantly older. How much older is unclear. His mutation surfaced in January 2007. He started wearing a weatherproof calendar-watch full-time on February 12, 2007. As of 2:13 AM (EST) on Nov 26 2007 (his official 14th birthday) it read 7:14 PM (EST) August 18 2016, so he figures he’s almost 23 years old. This is consistent with his physical appearance, but he’s not sure how reliable it is. Nationality/Ethnicity: first-generation American, parents are white South Africans Birthplace: Boston, MA
Personality: Andy is a genuinely decent guy who tries to do the right thing and is generally willing to help out people less fortunate than he is. He likes the idea of being a “superhero,” both as a way of doing good with his abilities and a way of making friends/becoming popular.
To outside eyes, Andy appears impulsive, easily distracted, inattentive – the classic ADD poster child. This is entirely an artifact of his mutation, however: his subjective time-rate is usually so accelerated that following a conversation (or the plot of a movie or TV show or other dynamic media) is extremely difficult for him.
In reality, Andy is unusually thoughtful and introspective, preferring to reason a topic through carefully before coming to a conclusion. If anything, his attention span is unusually long; he is accustomed to spending many (subjective) hours entertaining himself in various ways.
Because pretty much all of his friendships are maintained over email, IM, and similar media (because of the time mismatch issues above) Andy is almost always starved for physical affection (not sex per se, though that too, but friendly touch in general) and face-to-face social interaction with people, even though he finds it all extremely difficult to manage. He mostly manages not to be a nuisance about it, but it leaves him pretty gullible… he will pretty much roll over for anyone who is nice to him in person.
Related to the above, he tends to come across as an overeager puppy once you get past the whole speed-factor thing. He knows this is a problem and tries not to be too annoying, but he doesn’t have a lot of experience with normal social interactions and it isn’t easy for him. Fortunately for him, he does have a wicked sense of humor and is familiar with a broad range of conversational topics, which helps a lot.
Allegiance (Good, Bad, or Neutral): Good. Seriously so. He really does think of himself as a superhero, in the classic four-color comic sense. He has heard of the X-Men and has an extremely unrealistic romantic notion of them as a team of mutant crime-fighting superheroes, and wants to join up.
Appearance
Even at rest, Andy is “speeded up” by a factor of 2-5, just as if you were fast-forwarding normal video. It’s pretty obvious if you’re paying any attention at all.
Everyday clothing: When not dressed up for some specific occasion, he’s either in exercise gear (jogging clothes or equivalent) or wearing nice jeans and a fancy brightly-colored shirt.
Uniform: Andy doesn’t exactly have a uniform… like his codename, he tends to experiment frequently with modifications to his “super suit.” His current uniform is built around a skin-tight electric blue jumpsuit, navy blue running shoes, a pair of titanium bracers that cover his forearms, and a navy blue vest with lots of pockets. He also wears a domino mask (like Robin or Green Arrow) because it seems traditional, but he doesn’t seriously expect it to conceal his identity. The combined effect is unbelievably gay. He generally wears the jumpsuit under his street clothes and keeps the other stuff in a backpack.
Pajamas: He usually sleeps in his underwear. (Brightly colored briefs.)
Hair color and style: Reddish-brown; he usually keeps it spiked in a slightly punkish cut, and wears a full beard which he keeps well trimmed. Eye color: Blue Skin color: Caucasian, pale. He doesn’t tan easily, but he makes a point of trying every year. Height: 6’1” Build: 180-190 lbs; lean and well-toned but not heavily muscled. Note that despite his chronological/legal age, he’s “really” in his early 20s. Scars: Two relatively faint ones from when he broke both his legs jumping off a roof. Tattoos: Three rather large ones (he went through a period of really liking tattoos, though he had to get them done in many installments because sitting still for them took too long from his perspective). One is the bottom half of a stylized longbow along the right side of his chest and ribcage, firing a six-inch-long stylized arrow that runs along the inside of his upper right arm and ends at his elbow. One is a fairly realistic snake with its tail wrapped around his left ankle and twining up his leg, with its head at his left hip. The third is a pair of stylized wings on his shoulder blades. Piercings: Two in his left ear, one in his right, one in his left nipple. He wears small blue sapphire studs in the ears and a silver nipple ring he got at the same time as the tats.
History of your character:
Andy's life until his mutation surfaced was unexceptional, albeit privileged. He attended fancy private schools, vacationed with his family all over the world, and generally lived the life of a wealthy American child.
A few months after his 13th birthday he started speeding up. At first, his parents thought he was simply hyperactive, but the true nature of his mutation became obvious pretty quickly. Once it became clear that there was no real treatment for his condition, his parents stopped trying to "fix" it and learned to live with it.
In objective terms, Andy went from being a precocious pre-teen to an early twenty-something in less than a year. At first his speed factor fluctuated uncontrollably, averaging around ten; this left him perpetually exhausted as well as utterly socially isolated. After a while he managed to get it somewhat under control, making it possible (but difficult) for him to interact with normal people.
Officially he is being home-schooled and privately tutored. In practice, he has long since given up on being educated by others, although he has had some success with distance-learning programs and Internet-based tutorials. (His parents are worried about the implications of this for his future career, but he tries not to think about it much... besides, he’s not convinced he’s going to live past his official 20th birthday anyway.)
After several subjective years of this he decided that he was sick of being treated like a freak, however compassionately, and decided to re-invent himself as a superhero. He’s heard about the X-Men, who seem to be the closest thing to a superhero group in the real world, so he’s come to Manhattan to join them.
Fighting style: He’s basically a brawler, but his ability – even at low levels -- gives him the kind of precision and high-speed reflexes normally associated with highly trained martial artists. At high speed factors he can hit an opponent multiple times before they can even respond, which can be devastating. However, he doesn’t hit any harder than a normal person, so against a well-armored/protected opponent that doesn’t help much. In those cases he would either look for weapons (e.g., smash them over the head with a chair, or something like that) or run away if he can, or try to think of something clever to do (trip them, tie them up, disarm them, spray paint their eyes, etc.)
Sample RP: See Sonya…
Where did you learn about this site?: Surfing the net
This is totally awesome... thanks for doing this, Kat!
One minor suggestion - we're a little inconsistent about how we describe healers. I _think_ everyone except Aurica who is described as a "healer" can only heal themselves (Sonya, Calley, Werecat). Can we describe them all as "self-healer" or "regeneration" or something like that?
(( OOC: modified 1/27/08 to reflect changes in play )) Character's “real” name: Sonya Luisa Defaz Codename/Alias: Template
Gender: Female Age: 18 (born September 12 1989) Nationality/Ethnicity: American, Hispanic Birthplace: The Bronx, New York
Personality: Sonya's personality is somewhat variable, depending on what templates she is currently carrying around with her. In general, she tends to keep her thoughts to herself, although she is sometimes prone to losing her temper or her patience and delivering extended tirades about things she feels strongly about. She also enjoys bantering with people who are good at it.
She is very smart and she's proud of it, but she's not snooty about it; she gets annoyed by people who try to show off how much smarter they are than everyone else.
She's cautious about trusting people, but once she decides to trust someone she tends to trust them completely. Similarly, she is cautious about new experiences but when she decides to do something she tends to go all out.
Notes (Hobbies, Phobias, Worries, ect.): Sonya enjoys reading (pretty much anything), listening to music (pretty much anything, though her favorite is classical), playing guitar (which she does fairly decently), and drawing (which she does badly, but nevertheless enjoys).
She misses her family and friends back home enormously, and fantasizes from time to time about returning and taking the real Sonya's place (see history for explanation). While she is horrified by the fact that she'd even fantasize about something like that, it's an increasingly tempting idea.
She is obsessed with finding out more about her history, though at the same time worried about what she might find.
She likes animals of all kinds, but is scared to death of touching anything of less-than-human intelligence. This is an entirely practical fear (again, see history) but it's also become a conditioned phobic response for her, which she finds annoying but can't seem to do anything about. She's slowly getting it under control.
Allegiance (Good, Bad, or Neutral):
Sonya considers herself a good person: she’s nice to her friends, feels bad when innocent people get hurt, likes kittens and puppies (from a distance), that sort of thing.
On the other hand, she's no moral paragon -- she's not above lying, stealing, cheating, etc. if it gets her something she needs... she might feel guilty about it, but that doesn't necessarily stop her from doing it. And her current "underground" lifestyle has been causing her to do a lot of that sort of thing.
So, on balance, Neutral. The time she's been spending with the Order and with Calley is slowly leading her down the path to selfishness and bigotry, though.
Everyday clothing: As Teresa (the body she spends most of her time in), she favors a bright blue jogging suit and, more generally, athletic clothes. As Sonya (a body she doesn't wear very often), she tends towards darker colors. In other forms, whatever makes the most sense.
Uniform: Sonya wears a garment that resembles an elastic black bodysuit, but is in fact a relatively high-tech piece of equipment that can change its appearance in response to her cybernetic commands, both conscious and unconscious. She has no idea where it comes from.
Pajamas: Sweatsuit, or similar-but-lighter garment when it's warm.
As Sonya: Hair color and style: Black hair, kept short and spiked. Eye color: Dark brown Skin color: Light brown Height: 5’3” Build: Slight Scars, Tattoos, Piercings: None
As Teresa: Hair color and style: Blond, long, usually ponytailed. Eye color: Blue Skin color: Tanned, Caucasian Height: 5’9” Build: Medium, athletic. Scars, Tattoos, Piercings: None
Description of ability(ies):
Template has two related mutant abilities.
The first is the ability to perceive the genetic structure of organic material by touching it. Her ability gives her the same raw data that a genetic lab analysis would, but since she's had no formal training in genetics she can't really make sense of most of it. On the other hand, there are some things she can determine intuitively... for example, she can tell whether two people are related, and how closely; she can tell what animal a cut of meat came from; she can match a sample of hair or blood or skin to its owner; that sort of thing. She can detect genetic anomalies -- congenital diseases, mutations, etc. -- but she can't usually discern details (although if she's previously scanned someone with a similar mutation, it will feel similar).
The second, and more interesting, is the ability to "imprint" on a living thing (her "template") and adopt its genetic structure -- essentially becoming a clone of her template. This includes acquired characteristics (hairstyles, tattoos, build, etc.) though not completely artificial ones (prosthetic arms, for example).
This includes genetically based psychological traits... basic personality, mood, orientation, temper, that sort of thing. For example, if she “clones” a naturally angry or shy or sociopathic template, she adopts those traits as well... When she adopts a form, her brain and nervous system also change. This gives him access to the memories, skills, and personality traits of the individual she copied, although her own personality remains dominant. The skills she picks up are most likely to be deep-seated instinctive things, the sorts of things people don’t think about when they use them. For example, languages, navigating a well-known city, how to do a forward roll, remembering your daughter’s birthday. She can also pick up recently memorized items reasonably effectively – passwords, combinations, that sort of thing. Things in between, that have to be searched for – your third-grade teacher’s name, who won the 1993 World Series, etc. – are less likely to be picked up. The more time she spends in a form, and the more time she spends acquiring it, the more reliably she will pick up memories, skills, and attitudes.
When she changes form, injuries to her body are healed, although toxins in her body remain unaffected.
Weaknesses/limitations of ability(ies):
Template cannot control her genetic perception at all; it happens with everything she touches.
She can control her imprinting and her cloning so it only happens when she wants it to -- usually -- but it can go off uncontrolled when she's under emotional stress or distracted or under similar circumstances.
She has no way of "testing" a template, unless she can learn something useful from her genetic perception. She either imprints/clones it or she doesn't, and the result is all-or-nothing. This can be a real problem in some cases, if a template has unpleasant properties – for example, autism.
She does not pick up superhuman mutant abilities from her templates unless they are purely innate physical abilities with no “paranormal” component, like superstrength or agility, and not reliably even then.
She cannot mix-and-match attributes. In particular, if she clones something that does not have human-level intelligence, she loses her intelligence. She did this ONCE, with a stray dog, and woke up days time later with no memory of what happened, naked, filthy, with bite wounds all over her. She will NEVER do that again, and still has nightmares about it that leave her terrified of even touching an animal.
The more time she spends in a form, and the more time she spends acquiring it, the more powerful the copy of its psyche in her mind is. Sometimes this is an advantage -- she can access memories and skills more easily this way -- but sometimes it isn't, as the psyches start to alter her own attitudes and patterns of thought.
Originally, she could only hold one template at a time, and only for a couple of days. Over months of practicing with her powers, she's grown more versatile, able to keep several templates "live" indefinitely and shift among them at will. Still, any template she ignores for too long will simply fade away.
Fighting style (if any): Sonya has had no combat training. Teresa has had minor "self-defense" martial-arts training. Nevertheless, Template has discovered (quite by accident) that she has the reflexes of a trained martial artist that come into play when she is attacked. She's VERY good (though not superhumanly so). She has absolutely no idea where this comes from.
History of your character:
The earliest memory Template has that she knows is hers is from July 12th, 2007.
She remembers things before that, but those memories belong to Sonya DeFaz. Sonya was born in 1989 to Andrea Defaz, a single mother and schoolteacher in the Bronx, and lived 18 years in a small apartment with her mother and two sisters and lived a fairly uneventful life until June 12th 2007, when she encountered a hairless white-skinned humanoid figure in a black bodysuit lying unconscious in an alley. When Sonya touched the figure, it immediately awoke and turned into a copy of her, with all her memories.
The original Sonya fled in terror while the new Sonya stayed behind to make sense of the situation. Her bodysuit had no distinguishing marks, no ID, nothing. After a while, she decided to go home and explain the situation, but on her way home she was grabbed by a mugger. Without thinking, she imprinted on him and, suddenly violently aggressive, beat him senseless. That was when she realized there was no way she was going to go home again… she was too dangerous.
She took her would-be mugger’s clothes and wallet and took the train into Manhattan to start a new life. Since then she’s been living in cheap hotels and using her powers to commit a series of petty thefts to support herself as she tries to figure out what to do next.
She has no memory at all of her life before being found in that alley, and has tried and failed to adopt the white, hairless form she remembers seeing. (This is mostly a plot-hook to be used some day, but I figure Template used to be a mutant thief/infiltrator type who was defeated telepathically by some enemy; his/her original identity was wiped/submerged, which is why s/he copied Sonya so completely.)
Sample RP (from a few hours after her “origin”):
“Penn Station… laaast stop!”
Sonya – or whatever she is, now, but she still thinks of herself as Sonya – is aware of the train pulling in to the station, but she continues to look out the window at the dingy platform, unwilling to leave her seat. She’s been to the city plenty of times, of course, but this time is different… she knows it’s not for a visit, knows she’s never going home again.
She could, of course. Simplest thing in the world to surprise herself in some dark alley, take her clothes and keys and wallet, go home as if nothing had happened. Some part of her mind is tempted… but the fact she’s even thinking about it makes her want to throw up.
“Hey, buddy… last stop!” The conductor is looking at her suspiciously, warily; Sonya’s surprised by the attitude until she realizes she’s still wearing the body of that mugger… which almost sets her to shrieking hysterically. This isn’t something she’s supposed to have to deal with, her life isn’t supposed to be going this way.
But it is.
The conductor is tapping his foot impatiently, and Sonya nods her – no, his, now – head slowly. “OK, OK. I’m going.” He slides out into the aisle and through the sliding doors as the conductor hovers behind him, and he’s suddenly angry. For a moment he wants to turn around and punch the guy’s lights out, but instead he shoves his hands in his pants pockets and walks away… up the stairs, up the escalators, across the street to the vast Post Office steps.
“Dios mia*,” he mutters quietly, “what am I going to do now?”
* “My God”
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This has come up a few times, and I realize Sonya is a little on the confusing side, so I figure it'd be helpful for me to clarify this a bit.
When Sonya shifts, her body changes all the way down to the cellular level... she becomes a perfect physical/genetic copy of her template. So her imposture is pretty much undetectable by physical tools... even a detailed medical checkup would notice no difference. This also means she gets physical flaws of her template -- allergies, handicaps, etc.
Her brain also changes, but she retains Sonya's consciousness. This works a lot like telepathic possession. So any physical test that can recognize a possessing telepath -- say, a very very sophisticated PET scan -- could recognize Sonya. Sonya can access knowledge and skills and habits from the physical brain, though she can't do so deliberately at the moment. (She will get better at this as time goes on.)
Because her consciousness is in charge, her surface thoughts are hers, which means a telepath reading her surface thoughts would likely get clues about what's going on.
A telepath who digs deeper into her mind will pick up a combination of Sonya's thoughts, her template's memories, and (if they dig deep enough) fragments of the psyche of the original owner of Sonya's body (which Sonya herself is completely unaware of). Whether they can distinguish among these threads depends on how sophisticated they are at analysis. (Think of it like listening to three radio stations at once. It's _possible_ to follow all three, but it's hard.)
Other kinds of mental senses -- e.g., "detect minds" and things like that -- will get something similar... there are usually three minds collocated (her own, her template's, and her body's), with her own being the most active. I imagine this would resemble multiple personality disorder more than anything else.
So, summarizing: * physical senses are completely fooled * surface-thoughts telepathy detects Sonya's surface thoughts * deep telepathy and other mental senses detect multiple personalities, with Sonya's being active.
And it all hits the fan... (meets Amp/Vibe and some nameless other mutants as Sonny; runs away from Stalkers and cops; tranks Stanley the Cop and takes both his body and his clothes)
