Donald Ebberman
"Bringing back the dead (or saving the living from the shadow of death) is the ultimate queer act."
—Sharon P. Holland, Raising the Dead: Readings of Death and (Black) Subjectivity
Donald Ebberman came to the MGM desperate in 1980. He'd had a daughter in a previous relationship, before he'd admitted even to himself that he was a man, and her condition was getting worse, the treatment more expensive. He'd just lost his job and was in sore need for his meager savings to be significantly more than meager. Gambling was the only option he could think of. He took everything out of the bank and brought it to the casino, thinking only that there needed to be something to give thanks for at the upcoming holiday.
He spent the night of November 20th strapped into the roller-coaster of fortune that is a casino when more than a mere dopamine hit is on the line. There was no way for him to realize it in the intentionally timeless space of that casino, but the sun had left and returned as he watched the rise and fall of his bankroll. At 7 a.m., an electrical wire that had lost its insulation and grounding lit an abandoned restaurant within the hotel called the Deli on fire. Six minutes from the resultant wall of flame finally being noticed, the building was engulfed in flames. Donald was one of the 18 killed on the casino floor.
"If you spend a week at a casino you will very easily see that people have a certain way of behaving in a casino."
--Mads Mikkelsen
Donald's life insurance policy just barely covered his daughter's treatment, ensuring her survival but not her shelter or food or anything similar. As he was reluctantly dragged by the hand by some sort of dog-headed person, that math was all that he carried in his head and in his heart. Memory becomes a little fuzzier after that. Running, lots of running, through any number of surreal and strange landscapes, pursued by . . . something. It only settled into a stable construction when he found himself in the center of a casino. It was Bally's Las Vegas, and it was six years later.
The hotel where Donald had died has been sold and rebranded. As comprehension dawned in fiery panic, he ran through the city ~ walls were as solid as holograms ~ searching for the family he'd left behind. They were in a tenement in Downtown Las Vegas, where a single father could pay as little as possible for a roof over the head of a disabled daughter whose treatments were paid for, but not the accommodations that made her life both possible and livable. He set out once more to take care of the two people who still mourned him.
"The graves stood tenantless, and the sheeted dead
Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets."
--William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Unwilling to put his loved ones through the stress of discovering that he was a ghost, Donald set out to test his haunting abilities and scheme to turn them towards the well-being of his family. He used his control over heat and flame to punish those who would harm them before figuring out more skillful uses of such power. The real revelation, however, came when he discovered that he could possess the living and make them do things. Surely, he thought, this would provide for those he'd left behind.
Quite an urban legend built up around the ghost who came to be known as Emberwight on the burgeoning internet. Donald himself barely noticed ~ it's not like he spent much time making small talk with the living. But other beings with powers and experiences beyond the normal did. His efforts began to get tangled up and distracted by his interactions with these beings and people, making his eternal death all that much harder. Interestingly, Catspaw was not one of those people ~ she discovered his existence when he possessed her in order to pull off one of his schemes. You can guess how well that went.
"I think every child deserves a family as loving and committed as mine. Because the sense of family comes from the commitment we make to each other to work through the hard times so we can enjoy the good ones. It comes from the love that binds us; that’s what makes a family. ... My family is just as real as yours."
— Zach Wahls
Home Base: Las Vegas.
Gender: Transmale
Sexuality: Gay vanilla
Romantic Identity: Monogamous romantic
"Morrison imagines the spectral sphere as always already queer, a provocation and challenge to heteronormativity—with the ghost sometimes an active participant in disruptions of compulsory heterosexuality, sometimes a figure embodying closet desires, and sometimes a disembodied emanation that counterpoints homophobia"
--Toni Morrison and the Queer Pleasure of Ghosts
Recurrent Foes:
- Ammit the Devourer of Souls, Great of Death: When Donald died, his heart was heavy, loaded down with worry for his husband and daughter, self-recrimination for his failure, and a host of other, similar feelings. It was not lighter than a feather, so he ran. He ran from the strange dog-headed man who had brought him to . . . the Luxor? . . . and he ran from the green man who operated the scales, who had plucked the feather from atop the winged woman's head and his heart from his chest to compare their weight. And he ran from the lake of fire and the strange animal that stood snarling beside it. A crocodile head atop a body that's leonine in the front and hippopotamine in the back, and it somehow failed to catch the gambler until he'd run back to this world, a ghost. Ammit hungers for the soul of this man who failed the test and pursues him still. If he succeeds, Ebberman will be gone forever, reduced to nothing. Ammit doesn't even shit. Emberwight knows to run and to trick and to recruit allies when he catches a glimpse of his divine predator, because there is no way that he can stand against such a being. So far, his wits have earned his continued existence, but he frets over the day he runs out of ideas and allies.
- Notable Powers: (PL 16) Senses (acute smell, low-light vision), Swimming, Environmental Adaptation (aquatic), Bite (STR-based soul or piercing Damage 8, Improved Critical), high STR & FGT, Affects Insubstantial on everything, Protection, Insubstantial, Growth, Shrinking, all combat advantages, Favored Foe (those escaping the destruction of their soul), Fearless, Great Endurance, Tracking, Well-Informed, Immortality, lots of Immunities, Movement, Senses, Variable (Devourer of the Dead). Terrifying Roar, Speak with Animals, Swallowing Shadow, Immunity to Darkness, Immunity to Light, Gloom (extreme), Darkvision, Banshee's Wail (as Alternate Effect with Terrifying Roar), Feature (deathly aura, mental Strength), Death Stare, Suppress Life, Shielded Soul, Death's Gate, Valkyrie's Ride, Death Sight, Death Visions, Speak With the Dead, Dimension Walk (Affects Others, Area), Dimension Sense (analytical), Immolate (soul or fire, after critical damage), Immunity to Heat, Warm (extreme heat), Life Sense, Psychic Diagnosis, Power Detection (acute, analytical), Aura Reading, Cutting Loose, Massive Knockback, Shockwave, Bracing, Tug of War, Makeshift Handholds, Super-Leaping, Unstoppable from Power Profiles.
- Vincenzo Sangiovanni: The undead crime family Vincenzo is a representative of specializes in necromantic magics and interactions with ghosts. Despite the two meeting when Emberwight's spectral wrath came to Vincenzo's casino in the flaming deaths of a handful of patrons, the ghost didn't start out as particularly special to the blood-sucking hotelier ~ just another ghost to be bent to Vincenzo's will like so many others. It was only when Emberwight successfully resisted his control that Don Sangiovanni's pride became bruised, putting Donald in his crosshairs. That same pride, however, has been Emberwight's saving grace, as Vincenzo is stubbornly unwilling to give the fiery wraith any more of his attention or resources than is minimally needed. The couple of times the time traveler known as Tonka Truck has become even peripherally swept up into their conflict, the spiritworker's seemed strangely spooked.
- Notable Powers: (PL 12) Metrosexual Vampire from Supernatural Handbook. Command the Undead, Grasping Graves, Death Sight, Death Vision, Necromancy (with a number of spells as Alternate Effects), Speak with the Dead, Mind Control from Powers Profile. Death-activated equivalent of Scrying Stone of Sirrion and large installation from Gadgets Guide. Benefit (wealth 5)
- Catspaw: Emberwight possessed Dikadora at one point. Quite innocuously, to be sure ~ his intent was to establish a bank account he could later deposit money into that could provide for his husband and daughter. He didn't know about Dikadora's fey-twisted heritage, but that ignorance didn't protect him. His plan devolved into bad luck and failure, ending up taking money from his survivors rather than giving it to them. Vengeful wrath has led him to become a recurrent foe of the werecat's, a relationship which is complicated by Donald's occasional need for flight or protection from Ammit the Devourer of Souls, Great of Death. At times, he has brokered an unstable peace with Catspaw that allows the two to work together to save his ethereal hide, but the effort always invites Catspaw's powers. The two never come out friends afterwards, sadly. (PL 10)
- Ravella the Riverboat Queen: Emberwight is a recurrent player at Ravella's table, appearing whenever he can scrabble together some intangible bankroll exciting enough for Ravella to be willing to play. Quite a few of his more desperate plots have come from this quest for an ante she'd accept. He has won a game or two, but he also has an addiction. Ectodopamine is a helluva ghost-drug. Only once or twice has he been able to walk away from the table while his chips were high, but even then he soon discovered that his winnings were either not enough to secure his husband and daughter's future and comfort or that his winnings actually hurt them (which drove him back to the table, hoping to gamble those winnings away). One notable storyline involved someone utilizing Donald's addictive appearances at Ravella's table specifically to harvest his ectodopamine as an ingredient for a superdrug. Ravella revealed a bit of gold to her heart as she exerted herself to save her ghostly friend from his oppressor.
- Notable Powers: (PL 10) Variable (can bet and receive bets for anything; Affects Others, Slow, Precise, Variable Descriptor, Distracting, Limited: Only in Betting Games, Side Effect 1, Check Required: Opposed Expertise: Gambling), Immortality, Immunity (aging)
- Pastor Repressor: Raised in a very conservative Christian home, Stacey Robertson tried to become a police officer. While there, he asked a classmate out after they had spent time at gay bars together after class. Socially awkward and disliked by classmates, he did manage to get one, single, solitary boyfriend (Miguel) and a few one-night stands by visiting Vegas's gay nightclubs and using dating apps. His parents' homophobic teachings sat in his brain like a wriggling mass of worms all slathered in ghost-pepper sauce, however, leading to many nights at the club as a loud and belligerent drunk in a corner by himself. The day he learned that he might have been exposed to HIV by one of his lovers he saw a pair of ghosts on the Strip. Two men, who by their manner of dress had died in the late 1940s, appeared all wispy and pale, lost in the romance of a kiss. The bigotry of his childhood and the fear of disease manifested in an explosion of futile disgust and a flight back to the home ~ and church ~ of his youth. After enduring the usual barrage of insults from his parents, he renounced his former life, and buried himself in studies of his faith. Particularly the rituals and practices of exorcism, casting out the demons like Jesus did Legion from the pigs. After all, he reasoned, if he could exorcise the globe of queer ghosts, then he will have eliminated queer history. Without queer history, he never would have even considered that he might be queer, and everything could be right with the world. His eventual conflict with Emberwight is obvious, don't you think?
- Notable Powers: (PL 8) Exorcism in the Name of God (as Occult Exorcism of Obroros), Dimensional Banishment (limited to ghosts), Command the Undead from Powers Profile. Ritualist, Comprehend (spirits), high Expertise: Theology & Philosophy, Expertise: History, Insight, and Investigation, Artificer, Connected, Contacts, Fascinate (Expertise: Theology & Philosophy), Favored Foe (queers), Favored Foe (ghosts), Extraordinary Effort, Ultimate Effort, Luck, Inspire, Interpose, Languages, Leadership, Trance, Spirit Binding (Affliction, Affects Incorporeal Only, Limited Degree; vulnerable, immobile), Deflect (limited to ghostly powers), Senses (Ghostly Awareness, Counters Concealment Limited to Ghosts, Counters Illusions Limited to Ghosts, Danger Sense, Detect Ghosts, Shred Ectoplasm (alternate array: Damage ghosts, Weaken ghostly powers, Weaken ghostly attributes, Damage ectoplasmic objects).
- Slum Lord: Richard Beaumont fucked a djinn, a fey being that had come to the Nevada desert from the Arabian desert. He did strange drugs off of her tramp stamp, and then he fucked her. As Dikadora Kelly can tell you, that side of her family (no matter how distant) can have a whimsical sense of justice and a twisted magic. See, Beaumont had made a bunch of money in some shady real estate deals, which he barely even remembered when this beautiful Arab-American woman looked him in the eye, irises blazing behind her pink contacts, and murmured, "I can give you so much more, but only if you're brave enough to see. Do you want it?" Brain full of lust and foaming wines, he nodded and whispered from an expectantly dry mouth, "Yes. Yes, all of it yes, give me all of it!" Their simultaneous orgasm brought him great magical power over the urban landscape, but only those portions of the city to which he had brought suffering. He's come to regret this hasty deal, which forced him into a close examination of his actions' effects. Now, Richard's not sure if he's a villain or a hero, as he endeavours to do good things in more and more parts of Vegas ~ which means making tenants like Emberwight's family suffer.
- Notable Powers: (PL 6) Movement (Permeate, Limited to Urban Construction Materials, Limited to Into & Within Areas Where He Has Caused Suffering), Senses (Detect City Details and Layout (Acute, Analytical, Extended), Radio; Limited to Areas Where He Has Caused Suffering), Dynamic Array (Perception Ranged Move Object, Damaging, Precise, Limited to Urban Materials, Limited to Within Areas Where He Has Caused Suffering; Transform (any urban material into any other urban material), Continuous, Limited to Within Areas Where He Has Caused Suffering; Remote Sensing (all senses), Subtle, Limited to Urban Areas, Limited to Areas Where He Has Caused Suffering; Teleport, Accurate, Change Direction, Change Velocity, Easy, Turnabout, Medium (urban areas), Limited to Into & Within Areas Where He Has Caused Suffering), high Expertise: Civil Engineering, Diehard, Benefit (wealth), high Will and Toughness
- The Hummingbird Thief: Professor Cullen might be over-focused on (his interpretations of) Huitzilopochtli-as-hummingbird, but he hasn't forgotten that he was also a sun god, or had been raised to such exalted status by the cihuacoatl Tlacaelel I. This has led him to team up from time to time with the fiery ghost Emberwight. Usually, he allows Emberwight to possess him, allowing them to combine both the Hummingbird Thief's superspeed and Emberwight's control over flames. They often go by the name of Solar Flare in this form. (PL 8)
"Here’s to the ghost
We still seem to host
How he’s becoming us
Here come the vultures
Here come the vultures
Screaming down at us"
--Charlotte Wessels, Here Come the Vultures, The Human Contradiction
Physical Appearance: I can't draw, so I really like providing a few reference pictures and trusting in your imagination to build a good image of Emberwight. He looks like some combination of these five pictures:
"The double ontology of ghosts and ghostliness, the manner in which ghosts exist inside and out and traverse categorical distinctions, seems especially useful for a queer criticism that attempts to understand communal mourning, group psychologies, and the need for a politics that ‘carries’ our dead with us into battle for the present and future"
--Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia
Emberwight (PL 8)
STR - AGI 0 FGT -1 AWE -1
STA - DEX 0 INT 2 PRE 2
Powers
Burned to Death & Mad About It: Environment 5 (extreme heat), Features 4 (always knows where his husband and daughter are, deathly aura, flame aura)*; Immunity 10 (Heat Effects); Senses 1 (infravision), Enhanced Trait: Soulfireball 3 (fades, reaction: when absorbing heat, distracting); Soulfireball 1 (Ranged burst area soul or fire Damage, Dodge resistance check (DC 10 + rank) for half effect, resistible (Will as well as Toughness), affects corporeal 1) • 40 points
Dead: Immunity 30 (Fortitude effects); Insubstantial 4 (innate, permanent) • 51 points
Death’s Gate: Movement 2 (dimensional 2, afterlives), portal • 8 points
Death Sight: Senses 4 (detect dying at range; precognition limited to visions of death) • 4 points
Invisible: Concealment 2 (normal sight) • 4 points
Skin-Riding: Perception Ranged Cumulative Affliction 4 (resisted by Will; dazed, compelled, controlled), quirk: merge with subject, subtle • 16 points
Speak With the Dead: Senses 4 (postcognition) • 4 points
* Deathly Aura: Your touch is inimical to simple forms of life: small plants wither and die when you touch or even just walk over them, and small insects perish upon touching you. Although an inconvenience (and good for a complication) at times, this is a net Feature good for, amongst other things, a circumstance bonus to Intimidate checks. Flame Aura: Harmless flames that flicker within the depths of the character’s eyes or around their person, providing a +2 circumstance bonus to Presence-based checks.
Advantages
Favored Environment (casinos), Startle
Skills
Deception 2 (+2), Expertise: Gambling 4 (+6), Intimidation 3 (+3), Perception 3 (+3), Sleight of Hand 2 (+2)
Offense
Initiative +0
Soulfireball +0: Ranged, Damage 1 (soul or fire; up to 4 after absorbing heat)
Defense
Dodge 0
Fortitude immune
Parry -1
Toughness 0
Will -1
Ground speed rank 0 (2 mph)
Complications
Haunting Temper: Being a ghost carries with it certain realities and phenomena, one of which is a simmering rage, an anger at those who are alive and don't know what they have and a jealous wrath that can sneak up and jump out of a ghost when they least expect it. Every feeling gets twisted towards fury.
Motivation ~ Responsibility: Although he can get pulled into any number of other plots by virtue of being dead, the only thing Emberwight wants is to know that his family is safe and comfortable. Everything he does tracks back to that desire.
Power Point Totals: Abilities -16 + Powers 127 + Advantages 2 + Skills 7 + Defenses 0 = 120
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