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Chance

Origin: Unearthly
Real Name: Non-applicable
First Appearance: Eidolons! Comics #11 [Sigil Publications November 2012]

ABILITIES
Prowess 5
Coordination 5
Strength 5
Intellect 3
Awareness 4
Willpower 7

Stamina 12
Determination 2

SPECIALTIES
Acrobatics Mastery
Power (Empowerment)
Power (Power Nullification)
Stealth

POWERS
Empowerment 8
         Extended Range
Power Nullification 8
         No Feedback Damage
Wall-Crawling 4

QUALITIES
CHALLENGES
 Points: 55 (yay!)

ORIGIN STORY
Chance is one cellullar organism that was artificially separated from Paragon in a teleport experiment. Since then, he try to follow his "spiritual guide" footsteps, fighting crime in unconventional ways. Whatever other reasons or motives he has, he's not telling (even more so, because he seems to be absolute mute). In those skirmishes he's involved, his stances are always enigmatic: he uses his powers in clever ways, but those heroes who rely on groupwork or tactical attack go crazy, because Chance doesn't seem to follow any plan - or, at least, no one has ever acknowledged any.

(My first 2013 post: happy new year, everyone! I hope the lack of an origin - Chance was thought to be an enigma to the heroes in the game world - don't turn you down. A sort of "deus ex machina", Chance comes to help the heroes when they're somewhat in disarray. Converted characters, most of the times, unavoidably exceeds the 45-point limitation that the ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying Game core book recommends).

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Nemesis

Origin: Transformed
Real Name: Tristan Osiris
First Appearance: Eidolons! Comics #10 [Sigil Publications October 2012]

ABILITIES
Prowess 3
Coordination 3
Strength 3
Intellect 4
Awareness 6
Willpower 3

Stamina 6
Determination 1

SPECIALTIES
Power Mastery (Probability Control)
Tactics
Trivia Expert ("Ultras", powers)

POWERS
Adaptation 8
Danger Sense 6
Detection 2 ('Weakness')
Probability Control 8 ('Good Luck')
Regeneration 8

QUALITIES
  • Connections: The One, Lantern, Paragon.
  • Motivation: Revelling in his awesome powers while upholding the good.
  • Sharp wit.
CHALLENGES
  • Enemy: Ultiman, Babel, Siobhan 6, Maiden Japan
  • Probability Control only works on him, giving him the needed edge to perform his feats.
  • His "kinaesthetic awareness" is a mixture of Danger Sense, Probability Control and Adaptation, adding to his Awareness only when he's being attacked.
 Points: 60 (yay!)

ORIGIN STORY
Tristan Osiris was your run-of-the-mill guy, not special in any way, maybe except for his astounding knowledge of ultras, heroes and villains, and their powers and his funny, sharp wit. Working in a magazine specialized in ultra stories, he thought he had found his niche and that was that. But it wasn't. When The One arrived on Earth dimension, it happened to arrive in Tristan Osiris's house. The multiversal energies that accompanied The One's arrival showered him, transforming him forever. Now, not an undistinguished fellow, Tristan Osiris was one of the most powerful ultras in the multiverse.

Before you throw the first punch in a fight, Nemesis has already worked through a thousand of possible offensive and defensive combinations. His mind can process a million different fight progressions per second. He can see the underlying pattern in all situations and rapidly assimilate that information, sort it, and make sense out of it. For example: as a boulder flies toward him, he notes everything about it – its size, mass, slow rotation. He correctly identifies all 3,427 of its weak points. He calculates more than 10,000 possible reactions, and settles on one.

He figures out what his opponents will do before they do it, and reacts to it before their moves begin. Thus, if you try to grab him, you will find yourself clinging to empty air, since he would have expected the blow to come before you made a move, and would be long gone before you started to go after him. This makes him an incredible counter-puncher. He can react in precisely the correct fashion, and counter-strike an opponent in precisely the correct place with exactly the amount of force necessary to achieve the result he desires. And usually, he can do this before his opponent has even started the move he's reacting to.

He is also very good at using an opponent's force against him, so taking a swing at him, or shooting something at him, more often than not ends up coming right back at you. His “kinesthetic awareness” is a cross between blind fighting and ultra peripheral perception, whereby he can keep track of movements around him without having to actually keep his eyes on the target. He has an immediate and near-perfect grasp of his surroundings when he's in danger. This enables him to utilize the terrain about him to assist him in overcoming opponents. It provides a continuous stream of information to him about his location and position relative to static objects in the area. Moving objects can be projected, particularly objects that have a single unhinging vector – or dynamic objects over a short duration.

An seemingly unstoppable force to be reckoned with, Nemesis enjoys being an ultra. And he's determined to make a difference in wherever situation he is.

(My favourite original character ever. Adaptable, relentless and merry at the same time. His Probability Control powers are focused on retconning his fights, allowing him the needed edge he's famous for. His namesake reveals exactly that: whoever or whatever he faces, he can ultimately handle them. Converted characters, most of the times, unavoidably exceeds the 45-point limitation that the ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying Game core book recommends).

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Paragon

Origin: Unearthly
Real Name: Dylan Hunt
First Appearance: Eidolons! Comics #9 [Sigil Publications September 2012]

ABILITIES
Prowess 6
Coordination 5
Strength 10
Intellect 6
Awareness 7
Willpower 10

Stamina 20
Determination 1

SPECIALTIES
Aerial Combat
Leadership
Mental Resistance Mastery
Writing Mastery

POWERS
Blast 6 ("Arctic Exhalation")
Blast 6 ("Ocular Laser Beams")
Dimension Travel 1 ("Shifting to The Hesperidian")
Flight 10
Life Support 10
       Breathing
       Cold
       Eating
       Heat
       Pathogens
       Pressure
       Radiation
       Sleeping
       Toxins
       Vacuum
Invulnerability 8
Resistance 6 (Aging)Supersenses 6 
       Enhanced Hearing: "Ultra Hearing"
       Extended Hearing: "Directional Hearing"
       Enhanced Vision: "Penetration Vision", "Microscopic Vision" and "Infrared Vision"
       Extended Vision: "Ultra Vision"
Super-Speed 10

EQUIPMENT
Base 10 ("The Hesperidian", see below) 
     
QUALITIES
  • Connections: The One, police forces all over the world, Moira Hunt (wife)
  • Motivation: Uphold the Good, protect the innocent, totally incorruptible
  • Special Headquarters ("The Hesperidian")
CHALLENGES
  • Enemy: Ultiman, Babel, Siobhan 6, Maiden Japan
  • Weakness: Magic
  • Personal: Takes great care to use only the power necessary to defeat a foe
  • Personal: Great concern for sentient life, always worried about innocents in danger
 Points: 125 (monumental!)

ORIGIN STORY
Paragon is the ultimate creation of a very imaginative boy. Dylan Hunt was 13 years old when he discovered a severe brain cancer. The disease, told the doctors to his shocked and devastated parents, would give him few months or less, to live. During the excruciating months that followed, Dylan persevered in dreaming himself cured - so much so that, in his death throes, he accessed a particular dimension where he was not only cured, but able to do wondrous things. When poor, cancer-stricken boy had his last breath, he also exhaled a powerful shining figure, which would coalesce into Paragon. Since then, for all purposes, Dylan Hunt has been Paragon, and vice-versa. Dylan Hunt has also been a famous writer specialized in ultramen's adventures.

Paragon is unbelievably strong, although the upper limits of his strength are unknown. He has been observed stopping a runaway bus, destroying a giant robot with a single punch, and raising a sunken ship from the oceans off the Maldives coast. He is impervious to conventional weaponry, cold, disease, heat, poison, radiation, pressure, starvation and can survive in the vacuum of space. Paragon has what was called “unbreakable body”, which means he doesn’t suffer ‘serious injuries’, because his body is utterly indestructible. He hasn't aged a day from the day he first appeared to the public; he maintains the physical and mental abilities he has always had well into the present day. He can survive in anaerobic environments indefinitely, by the simple method of not breathing. He also does not require food or drink, though he apparently enjoys both.

Paragon’s speed is just as impressive as his strength. He is capable of enhanced reflex action and the ability to move at incredible speeds by sheer force of will.

His senses are superhumanly developed. He can hear any sound at any volume or pitch. The only Earth creature who can detect sounds at the frequency he can is a blue whale (0.01-200,000 Hz). He has shown enough control to block out ambient sounds to focus on a specific source/frequency. He can hear every single heartbeat, as well as the blood pumping through everyone's veins, hear every foot step, every cell phone signal as it lances through the air and more. He can identify a person by their heartbeat, or pick out a single voice in an entire world.

He also possesses a superior sensory arrangement of microscopic, telescopic, infrared and ultraviolet visual capabilities. He can see well into all of the EM Spectrum. He can see and identify radio/television and any and all broadcast/transmitted frequencies, allowing him to avoid detection through radar or satellite monitoring methods. Paragon has the ability to "zoom in" his distance to see something at a great distance, without violating the laws of physics. His “Infiltration Vision” allows him to see through anything except lead. He can see things behind a wall as if the wall were not there, or can "peel back" layer after layer of matter in his mind. Paragon is able to focus his vision past layers of matter, literally seeing "through" them – possibly perceiving x-rays, cosmic rays or other forms of energy invisible to normal human vision which pass through Earth's atmosphere (and solid objects) after emission from stars. Since it is passive, this ability would not generate harmful radiation in the same manner as a focused projection of hard X-rays. He can see extremely small objects and images down to the atomic level (normal optical microscopes can only see objects down to the size of chromosomes) and his “Infrared Vision” allows him to see better in total darkness. He can detect the heat signatures of living beings or devices in operation.

Through manipulation of gravitons, Paragon is able to seemingly defy the forces of gravity and propel himself through the air unaided. Like many other ultramen with the same ability, Paragon's skill in flight allows him to perform just about anything he could on the ground in the air. He is easily able to reach escape velocity under his own power and has flown for months on end to reach the end of the universe, which puts his top flight speed at several hundred times greater than the speed of light. It's unknown if he maintains this level of power.

Paragon creates hurricane force winds by blowing, can chill his breath in order to freeze a target (this latter ability has also been called "Arctic Exhalation"). He is also able to draw in large amounts of air, an ability used when dealing with and disposing things like clouds of poison gas.

Paragon is capable of firing beams of intense heat at a target by looking at it with the conscious act of activating this power. Visually, the power is typically depicted as two beams of red light firing from his eyes. The area of effect can be consciously determined by Paragon, down to the microscopic level.

Paragon's bio-cellular matrix (an energy pattern that is linked to his body's electromagnetic field) is his most powerful asset, but also his greatest weakness. Its permeability to certain wavelengths makes Paragon vulnerable to certain radiations, particularly magical energies whose chaotic electromagnetic or extra-dimensional signatures disrupt his force field. Paragon's vulnerability to magic varies on the special effects of the magic. No magic seems to be able to directly destroy him unless it comes from a semi-divine or divine source. He can be injured and worn down by magical entities. Magic can have powerful and unpredictable effects on Paragon and his magical enemies have often proven to be the most dangerous.

Paragon is truly amazing in combat. Virtually unstoppable, able to defeat the likes of Hercules and Thor, about the only reason most of Paragon’s enemies aren't terrified of him is that he always takes great care to use only the power necessary to defeat a foe.

His ability to assess situations and opponents borders on the supernatural. He usually starts by grappling an opponent, examining their strengths and weaknesses up close. Once he has an idea of what his opponent is capable of, he calmly and carefully takes them apart, doing his considerable best to ensure that minimal damage is done to the surroundings. In fact, magic notwithstanding, Paragon's greatest weakness in battle is his concern for sentient life. Many a villain has escaped Paragon (temporarily) by placing innocents in danger.

By allowing his mind to go blank and all tension to leave his body, Paragon can take a “sideways step” into a pocket dimension he calls “The Hesperidian.” It contains a great hall; a trophy room with mementoes of past cases; an arsenal of confiscated weapons and devices; an infirmary; a laboratory; and a very prized library, where Paragon keeps one copy of every book ever published. The Hesperidian includes all the necessary amenities for people to live there full-time. The Hesperidian has its combat simulator, for a multi-purpose training room.

A computer organism serves the entire Hesperidian. It takes an avatar of a female human which can communicate with organic sentient beings through voice, video images and three-dimensional holographic projection. The structure of the Hesperidian “heals” any damage done to it over time.

One particular part of The Hesperidian is a chamber called “The Hall of Mirrors”. This is a cell for imprisoning threats to humanity so great they could not be entrusted to the conventional authorities. It is a weird mirror-dimension originally discovered by author Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll. Dodgson discovered an antique mirror that was actually a portal to a mirror-world with strange physical laws and bizarre creatures, inspiring Dodgson to write his famous children's novel Through the Looking-Glass, or Alice in Wonderland. Paragon duplicated the mirror in The Hesperidian, creating a device that opened a portal to a different area of the mirror-world, and used it as a prison for his deadliest foes. The area of the mirror-world that serves as the Mirror Prison is a desolate desert plain. As long as the mirror in the Hesperidian isn’t shattered, prisoners can't pass through to the real world, and the weird physics of the mirror-world neutralizes their powers, which makes it difficult to escape.

Time within the Hesperidian actually moves at a different rate than that of the world outside. Time within the structure is either slowed compared to the normal passage of time allowing Paragon to spend additional time planning, building, or recovering while little time passes outside, for example.

(My take on Supreme/Superman-like characters. The total points are impossibly high but as NPC he serves well when characters are in need for help. Paragon is the ultimate ultrahero in our campaigns; he sets the paradigm, the example. Ultimately incorruptible, he's the force of good, the beacon which guides all the other heroes in our Sigil Universe. It was the first character I ever created in ICONS, just to see how well I could do it, so it's more than appropriate to have it here, to celebrate Eidolons' hundredth post. Converted characters, most of the times, unavoidably exceeds the 45-point limitation that the ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying Game core book recommends).

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Lantern

Origin: Unearthly
Real Name: Unrevealed
First Appearance: Eidolons! Comics #8 [Sigil Publications August 2012]

ABILITIES
Prowess 3
Coordination 5
Strength 6
Intellect 4
Awareness 8
Willpower 5

Stamina 11
Determination 1

SPECIALTIES
Investigation Expert
Science (History) Mastery

POWERS
Absorption 6 (Light-based attacks only)
          Healing
Alternate Form 10 (Permanent) ["Solid, cohesive light"]       
          Affects Incorporeal
          Attacking (Blast)
          Creating Light
Detection 8
          Chronometric
          Energy
          Lie
Immortality 10
Immunity 10 (Afflictions)
Life Support 4
          Breathing
          Cold
          Eating
          Sleeping
Postcognition 10
Regeneration 10 (Only when exposed to light)
Resistance 10 (Blinding)
Supersenses 1
          Additional Sense ["True Sight"]
     
QUALITIES
  • Connections: The One, Paragon. 
  • His postcognition is linked to his light creation powers. He shines his light forth upon any place and creates semisolid objects and mobile light creatures re-enact the scenes that were played where the facts have occurred. The 'Affect Incorporeal' effect applies when his light is shone forth. 
  • Motivation: Lantern lives and breathes to solve the world's mysteries. His focus vary from cracking the puzzles of the natural world or the unraveling the enigmas of the human heart and mind, but whatever his obsession, ignoring a riddle requires great effort (The expression curiosity killed the cat comes to mind).
    CHALLENGES
    • Enemy: Ultiman, Babel, Siobhan 6, Maiden Japan
    • His postcognition works only where the fact has occurred.
    • His regeneration only works when in presence of light.
    • Personal: He's a being of solid, cohesive light. His alternate form is permanent, and he cannot transform himself into light, only generate it. Also, he doesn't have the invulnerability power associated to Alternate Form characters.
     Points: 115 (stupendous!)

    ORIGIN STORY

    Lantern remains a mystery to be solved: is he a man that carries a lantern implanted in his chest, or a lantern that somehow became human? Cryptic as he is, he is not telling.

    His powers work on a principle of photo metabolism – his body’s cells work use photons as an energy source. This allows him to project light ranging from a damaging light blast to a blinding flash that creates light in a given area. His body also acts as a solar battery – when he is in sunlight he has almost limitless energy reserves. He is also able to recover from fatal wounds if his body is exposed to sunlight. Fortunately this can be artificially duplicated; the sun isn’t necessary to activate his advanced metabolic processes. Light-based attacks don’t seem to affect his as much either (in fact, they heal him!).

    Lantern neither ages nor is affected by disease. He is the world most powerful postcog. 

    As the bringer of light, he can know the peculiar energy signature of each time period, knowing what day it is at any moment. Also, he can detect waves of energy, detect lies (spotting a liar in the crowd), can see anything invisible and can ignore illusions.

    His light control power also grants his resistance to light and blindness, and has a mild hypnotic power. It also allows his to send out waves of bright light, defeating darkness.


    (A character created based on a concept seen on Stormwatch stories from Warren Ellis. Converted characters, most of the times, unavoidably exceeds the 45-point limitation that the ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying Game core book recommends).

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    Talking About Equipment



    Equipment can also have various special powers relating to its function. These powers can only be incorporated into a piece of equipment. Otherwise, they function just like other powers.
    • Alarm: Alerts the user when tampered with.
    • Anti-Nullification: The equipment doubles its normal intensity when resisting Power Nullification.
    • Anti-Theft: Causes its intensity in damage when tampered with.
    • Automatic Return: Return on its own to a person or place.
    • Automatic Summoning: Appears our of nowhere when the owner wills it.
    • Autopilot: Can drive or fly itself.
    • Backup Power: Auxiliary power source for when main power fails.
    • Coded: Can be used only by those with the code.
    • Collapsible: Can collapse down for easy storage or carrying.
    • Commlink: Can communicate by radio waves or some other method.
    • CPU: Has a computer's central processing unit for direction.
    • ECM: Has electronic countermeasures against detection and targeting.
    • EMP Protection: Has resistance to electromagnetic pulses.
    • Firefighting: Quenches fires that occur in or outside the item.
    • Homing System: Can locate objects by tracers.
    • Lights: Can project light. You can incorporate Elemental Control (Light) for guidelines on light intensities.
    • Loudspeaker: Allows the user to be heard clearly out to visual distance.
    • Passenger Compartments: Can hold more than the user.
    • Randomizer: Fires randomly at targets, negating Danger Sense.
    • Remote Control: Can be operated from a distance.
    • Sensor: Can track beyond its field of vision.
    • Sentience: Can think for itself with an Intellect equal to its intensity.
    • Speaker: Can speak on its own.
    • Tractor Beam: Can pull or drag items with intensity Strength.
    • Unbreakable: Can't be damaged, but damage can still pass through it.
    • Irremovable: Can't be taken away, not even by the hero who uses it.
    • Unstable Molecules: Adapts to a hero's superpowers and is unaffected by them.
    • Worthiness: Requires a test before anyone can use it. 

    As usual, please feel free to discuss, critique and evaluate in the comments below.

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