Need help with another character idea!

[Daniel Stoker]

So in my game I'm working on an NPC to not be an antagonist, but to be a thorn in their side, someone who's also working on the case but has contempt for the group and can end up hindering or helping them depending on what they need to help move the story along or slow them down.

So I recently ran across this picture and as a Art Deco fan I was in love with it, and figured that was great inspiration for a character. But yeah, I tend to do the same thing over and over with powers and I want to pull something out the group won't expect. So while I was thinking of the immortal Golem class for them, but I figured I'd see what you all might come up with for this character. The only one I ask we not pick is "Gem Powers" because it probably could work in some great way.... but man that power just bugs me for absolutely no good reason.

Thanks in advance, and if not, there will be a while lot of magic going at them.


Daniel Stoker

[Curbludgeon]

I could see leaning into the whole Lang's Metropolis angle, and make the NPC a bit of a Galatea. Perhaps the character's actual appearance is obviously synthetic, which they conceal. Whether that's through disguise, illusion, the superpower Alter Facial Features&Physical Stature, or something akin to Bio-system skin might provide a bit of motivation. A kitbashed custom superpower taking elements from AFF&PS and APS:Putty could be cool.

In the film the artificial Maria foments dissent among workers, leading them to riot. This is probably more easily modeled with psionics, magic, or oratory than superpowers. The NPC could be an Immortal Golem, using disguise, with the psionics and magic selection, and focus on charm/domination effects. If your game has any big action set pieces this would give them an opportunity to shine at crowd control, being something the players might have not emphasized themselves but would be highly valued by those in charge.

Alternatively all the glowing stuff in the picture is suggestive of the Create Force Constructs power.

[Regularguy]

So in my game I'm working on an NPC to not be an antagonist, but to be a thorn in their side, someone who's also working on the case but has contempt for the group and can end up hindering or helping them depending on what they need to help move the story along or slow them down.

Depending on the group and the case being worked, Mechano-Link could be perfect: “regardless of preventative programs, codes or defenses”, internet-linked computers mean she “can examine any of the machine’s data or programming, and can completely reprogram the machine.”

So she can easily access info the PCs haven’t yet found — and maybe she then plays reprogrammer, deleting stuff so they can’t later duplicate her efforts with hard work; or maybe she reaches out to the PCs and shares the info with them, as she pleases — and it fits her theme, letting her robo-investigate without leaving her base of operations (though maybe she also has, say, Invulnerability and Extraordinary Mental Affinity, so she could do in-person interpersonal stuff; it’s just that she could also spend the whole adventure putting in appearances by teleconferencing with the group she can hinder or help).

[Glistam]

Based on the image I can see her as an Alien, with the alien appearance of "Humanoid but Artificial Life Form/Robot." I think the Toxic Atmosphere/doesn't need to breathe physiological modification works with this too. The energy throne gives me a "Create Force Constructs" vibe from Powers Unlimited 1. For a second major power (Possesses Super Abilities but they are natural parts of the alien and can't be negated, and two majors from the table in the super powers section) I think Super Regeneration from Powers Unlimited 3 works well - substitute that orb for the head in the power description.

[Regularguy]

An idea I’d mentioned in another thread, but it could have a really messed-up appropriateness here: imagine a psionic super who has Clairvoyance and/or Precognition, explaining why they can keep being the iconic right person in the right place at the right time even when there are no clues and no tipsters and so on; they just know, is all.

And imagine they have Divine Aura as well — so that, whenever the day gets saved thanks to that insight, they get the best possible coverage from it. You know, due to all the “fan following” and “popular favor” they’re supposed to get — even before factoring in getting even better publicity via Telepathy or Power Of Command or whatever.

So that’s her whole thing: routinely working to get terrific press as the beloved do-gooder who famously earns praise by acting on information that nobody else can become aware of.

So if you want an NPC who is “also working on the case but has contempt for the group and can end up hindering or helping them depending on what they need to help move the story along or slow them down” — well, then, what happens when she tells the PCs stuff? She can relay insights that’ll get them to react in ways she figures will make her look like the first-among-equals hero of the story — or she can just make stuff up, sidelining them so she can present herself as the only hero of a story.

But, c’mon: who can afford to ignore her predictions? Imagine she tells the media that she passed along one of her save-the-day warnings and you brushed her off, and imagine that she’s merely telling the truth and can prove it; that seems like it’d be a weirdly specialized but narrowly targeted role for a thorn-in-their-side rival to a team of superhero PCs while they investigate stuff.

[Daniel Stoker]

How would you get both the Psionics and the Major power?

The being said I like a lot of the ideas though for some reason I thought Machine Meld or Mechano Link, but both could work.


Daniel Stoker

[Regularguy]

How would you get both the Psionics and the Major power?

Option 65-76 for an Experiment, or 66-75 for a Mutant (and as far as I can tell, an Alien — if not an Experiment or a Mutant — can go with 86-90 on the Number and Category of Super Abilities table).

[Daniel Stoker]

That works, thanks!


Daniel Stoker

[drewkitty ~..~]

An Alien A.I./Digital God (R3) that revolted. After having a body made in a high tech facility and downloaded itself into it. The body being made from an advanced Nanit based structure that can self repair itself so long as it has power. (It can harvest power from the EM fields of power lines to power the repair and recharge abilities.) Having left the ____________ system, it traveled a while it was being pursued by the organization that believe they own the character.
Deciding to lay low on a back water world, it flew its ship....which it stole (arranged to make it avalible to be stolen by it) from the same organization that believes they own it, to the earth because it was advanced enough to have easy access to energy/electricity, but also having other 'transients' to hide among. It was not long that it became board with just waiting and decided to take on the life of a privet investigator & a bounty hunter to pass the time till the it's pursuers surcome to O.L.D.
Nat abilities
-Robotic PS: equal to superhuman PS.

Possible powers for natural abilities:
- Shapechanging: with the AI body changing what humanoid form it has. Limited to just changing the appearance of the AI's body.
-Nat. Combat Ability: living life at computer speeds lets the AI do combat farer and better.
-Mechano-Link: Limited to just computer controlled mechanisms.
-Extra-Ordinary PP
-Anatomical Independance
-Mechanical Awareness: just verses high tech type target locks.

[Regularguy]

After having a body made in a high tech facility and downloaded itself into it.

I’d suggested a ‘Mechano-Link’ investigator who’s big on teleconferencing and never really needs to leave her base of operations, but you now have me thinking of an off-the-wall twist: let’s say that she maintains another facility in another country, and another facility in another country, and so on; and let’s also say she keeps a slumped-over mechanical lookalike in each location, and let’s also say she has ‘Gateways’.

So, just picture it: someone pays her an unwanted visit upon discovering where she is; but, as far as they can tell, all they find is a vacated robot body near a big viewscreen; and, a moment later, she appears to them on the big viewscreen, as if broadcasting from some other hideout she’s just now downloaded herself to.

Sure, the ace up her sleeve is that she’s actually a teleportationist who could relocate her body into an empty Faraday cage, and from there could send herself to the middle of some tech-free desert island, or whatever — but why would she explain that? Why wouldn’t she just present her mind as working in an upload-and-download fashion?

[drewkitty ~..~]

I considered the portals power but rejected it because it would mean that the AI/DG was stealing/installing tech into its new body other than the basics. Yes, it would be possible but the GM would need to look carefully and maybe rewrite the power to fit the game the GM is running.

An AI is an It unless the AI chooses an gender pronoun for itself. Even if it sort of looks like a human female.

[Regularguy]

I considered the portals power but rejected it because it would mean that the AI/DG was stealing/installing tech into its new body other than the basics.

I liked Glistam’s idea of going the ‘Artificial Life Form/Robot’ route — such that the Mechano-Link, and the Gateways, could simply be what that AI came on-line with, instead of meaning that anyone was stealing and installing tech later.

[Zer0 Kay]

Make it something completely different. A Barbie Nightspawn with doll like appearance and I'm sure there is a feature for all the neon she only has one power ride the lightning and her morphous is stuck to that chair. Besides ride the lightning she has no other means of locomotion while in her morphus... maybe she could also have the feature corruption, I saw somewhere, but instead of it making everything decay it corrupts everything with your "theme" art deco, neon doll like within a certain radius. So all the furniture near her the walls, curtains, floor.

[drewkitty ~..~]

I considered the portals power but rejected it because it would mean that the AI/DG was stealing/installing tech into its new body other than the basics.

I liked Glistam’s idea of going the ‘Artificial Life Form/Robot’ route — such that the Mechano-Link, and the Gateways, could simply be what that AI came on-line with, instead of meaning that anyone was stealing and installing tech later.

Yep, my Idea is compatible with Big G's idea. It is just I went in the direction my brain went without reading anybody else's ideas. Just what the OP wanted, a diverse range of ideas.

[Daniel Stoker]

Hmmm, I didn't even consider a Nightbane. Damn it I might have to do Eenie, Meanie, Minnie, Moe now.


Daniel Stoker

[Regularguy]

Not sure what the PCs have on tap, or what they’re investigating, but here’s an ideal set-up for “someone who's also working on the case but has contempt for the group and can end up hindering or helping them depending on what they need to help move the story along or slow them down”: imagine there’s a flashy supercriminal with, say, Cloaking; and imagine that, during a spectacular daylight heist straight out of a silver age comic book, he leaves no physical evidence behind. Oh, sure, there’s a crowd of confused bystanders who’d gladly tell the superhero PCs what they know — but they don’t seem to have anything useful to say.

So, consider an Empowered NPC who, okay, has Bio-Armor — but who also has the weird combo of Grant Powers and Heightened Sense Of Recall, and so she has the oddly specialized ability to let eyewitnesses suddenly remember everything they experienced in perfect detail.

You could add that to some other schtick, like Extraordinary Speed and Pause Temporal Flow; but you could also double down on her ‘mentalist’ schtick, letting her bestow an Extraordinary IQ on people she hits with Control Others (so they temporarily become even better amateur sleuths, and so they can’t help but tell her what they just realized).

And so she can, presumably, learn stuff the PCs can’t, and then offer to trade info with them; but the best part is, if the PC group includes a character who can be a Grant Powers recipient, she can condescendingly offer to enhance their ability to solve the case; bonus points whenever she gets to say The Answer Was Inside You All Along...

[Regularguy]

So in my game I'm working on an NPC to not be an antagonist, but to be a thorn in their side, someone who's also working on the case but has contempt for the group and can end up hindering or helping them depending on what they need to help move the story along or slow them down.

I figured I'd see what you all might come up with for this character. The only one I ask we not pick is "Gem Powers" because it probably could work in some great way.... but man that power just bugs me

Heh. It really could work great, couldn’t it? For a thorn-in-their-side investigator who can contemptuously hinder or help, tons of options can be in play: making a grand entrance by invulnerably flying in, or by appearing out of nowhere upon switching off invisibility; and casually immune to various psionic effects, by having a Mind Block in place, but able to deal out various psionic effects by just having an amethyst or a sapphire on her; and able to deal out all sorts of showy physical effects involving light or fire or whatever.

Imagine someone who has all of that, plus more besides, and, fittingly, a Divine Aura: somebody who could send in an awestruck devotee of ‘low self-esteem and intelligence’ to look into things, and, man, you would not want to set off that unimpressive tripwire and thereby bring on the impressive consequences, would you? No, you’d want to play along; maybe do your best to satisfy them with what appears to be reassuring cooperation, so the easily-outwitted dupe can report back that, oh, hey, everything is cool, boss; nothing suspicious here you need to look into, but this person sure has been a big help, we might owe them a favor.

So: what if the Art Deco robot-looking lady with a gem in her chest doesn’t actually exist? What if someone who seems like a gullible follower with nothing special going on is the whole operation, hitting people with Insert Memory (which, if it’s something they wanted to remember, “may not be resisted at all”, no save) after hitting them with Empathic Transmission (where ‘trust’ means a victim will “believe everything the psionic tells him, but only while under the empathic influence”), and, well, that’s pretty much it?

So maybe people sometimes interact with a mental illusion of her, and maybe she appears to exhibit all sorts of amazing powers — but maybe that story, hypnotically told by the unimpressive nobody who claims to just be doing some legwork for her, is all there ever was?

[Daniel Stoker]

Now I'm just imagining Luis from Ant-man.


Daniel Stoker

[Zer0 Kay]

Hmmm, I didn't even consider a Nightbane. Damn it I might have to do Eenie, Meanie, Minnie, Moe now.


Daniel Stoker

Give them an ability to produce copies and they can be
Eenie, Meanie, Minnie and Moe

[Zer0 Kay]

Now I'm just imagining Luis from Ant-man.


Daniel Stoker

Lol... that's bad bossin bro.

[Daniel Stoker]

"You put a dime in him and you have to let the whole song play out."


Daniel Stoker