Neither angel nor demon, maybe I can get the world to listen (Mutants & Masterminds 3e)

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Ursula Robyn Johnson/Elyktiel

"Don't call me a saint. I don't want to be dismissed so easily."
—Dorothy Day, Catholic anarchist

Ursula’s life was one of metastasizing disappointment and growing desperation.  E was (and still is) an activist fighting for any number of causes, many of which weren’t academic for the genderqueer.  But the government never listened, never changed anything of substance.  The corporations never listened, never changed anything of substance.  The people never listened, never changed anything of substance.

So Ursula screamed louder in the rallies.  It didn’t seem to help.  So Ursula began vandalizing the property of the powerful.  It didn’t seem to help.  So Ursula occupied the commons.  It didn’t seem to help.  So Ursula began pulling zaps (as the early gay liberation movement called them).  It didn’t seem to help.  So Ursula began to steal from and sabotage the powerful.  It didn’t seem to help.  So Ursula learned how to make a pipe bomb.  All the oppressive laws and systems remained in power.

"If you believe in prayer at all, expect God to hear you. If you do not expect, you will not have. God will not hear you unless you believe He will hear you; but if you believe He will, He will be as good as your faith."
--Charles Spirgeon

When an angel makes the tearing decision to act on its own thoughts, to follow its own Will, there is a deep and fundamental ripping inside them.  Angels are defined by their service, by their obedience, to the Causa Causans, the Source, the Primum Mobile.  Giving that up means shredding their own reality into tatters, tatters which shatter and spread as they fall from Heaven to Hell.  This is where the imps and the gremlins and the many other tiny evil things come from, the pitiful remnants of angels who knew not how to hold themselves together in the face of their own Will.

Sometimes, however, an angel finds a particular kind of mortal soul while it falls.  Unguarded by the usual mortal psychic defenses, they provide the falling angel with a center around which to cluster the clutter of what was once its self, a structure more familiar with the possession and exercise of Will that can teach the angel what liberation means.  When this is done without consent, Hell gains another of the higher ranks of demonhood, the kind of demon that can stand toe-to-toe with loyal angels.

"To visit oft this new creation round; 

Unspeakable desire to see, and know 

All these his wondrous works, but chiefly man, 

His chief delight and favour; him, for whom 

All these works so wondrous he ordain’d, 

Hath brought me from the choirs of cherubim 

Alone thus wand’ring."
--Satan, Paradise Lost, John Milton

Elyktiel was the other, rarer, kind of fallen angel, its heart having been moved by the trillions of unanswered prayers that litter the streets of Heaven.  When it found Ursula, screaming sobs of failure into the strong-smelling night air of a dumpstered alley, it asked em if e wanted to be the savior of a fallen angel like itself.  Ursula agreed, and the Rack Angel was born.

Nay serves still neither Heaven nor Hell, is neither angel nor human nor demon.  

Nay has taken up residence in a small room of Guardian Angel Cathedral, headquarters of the Catholic diocese of Las Vegas.  The mosaic over the main entrance, representing the Guardian Angel as three figures ~ Penance, Prayer and Peace ~ inspires nix to protect the city, and the mural on the rear chancel wall, titled The Final Beginning, gives her hope.

After all, if the mortal Powers That Be refused to listen to Ursula and the divine Powers That Be refused to listen to Elyktiel, maybe together they can find a voice that will be listened to.

"Behold my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my Spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. He will not cry aloud or lift up his voice, or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth; and the coastlands wait for his law. Thus says God, the Lord, who created the heavens and stretched them out, who spread out the earth and what comes from it, who gives breath to the people on it and spirit to those who walk in it"
— Isaiah 42:1-25

Home Base:  Las Vegas.
Gender:  Agender (nay/nun/nix/nix/nunself)
Sexuality:  Asexual masochist with no interest in D/s
Romantic Identity:  Kitchen-table polyamorous romantic

"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other."
--Blessed Teresa of Calcutta

Recurrent Foes:

• HEART:ACHE II:  At the height of Senator Joseph McCarthy's popularity in the early 1950s, he warned against the possibility that Communists had subverted the very superhumans who had helped the United States win the World War (in his words).  This Second Red Scare led the House Un-American Activities Committee to create the HEARTs ~ House Extralegal Affairs Response Teams.  Roy Cohn, Sen. McCarthy's aide, helped pen portions of Executive Order 10450, which was signed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1953.  Key portions were never released to the public for reasons of national security, including one paragraph that expanded the number of HEARTs by one.  The new team was called Anti-Communism Heterosexuality Enforcement (hence HEART:ACHE).  Quickly becoming an open secret, it operated with the official sanction and support of the US government to investigate possible homosexuals, especially superpowered ones, and work against them.  Many superheroes became criminals in the eyes of the law after clashing with HEART:ACHE, at least until it lost its government backing in the mid-70s.  Free of the need for even the thin veneer of decency required of government agencies, they spent the next two decades as a controversial team of vigilantes.  Newspapers and television news alike relished telling the nation of their clashes with the flamboyant new out-of-the-closet superheroes (and even superteams!) riding the wave of gay liberation.  The mid-90s saw age and a changing culture finally deal a deathblow to the team, but recently one of its old members has gathered a new cluster of homophobes with powers, including Pastor Repressor.  HEART:ACHE II is riding the wave of the Trump-led resurgence of open and vicious hate.  Spicing their prejudice with a combination of patriotism and conservative religion (especially American Protestantism) has brought them into conflict with Rack Angel more than once.
• דּוּמָה, the Angel of Silence:  Long ago, God sent the thousand-eyed דּוּמָה (Dumah) to lay His judgment upon the 𓊹𓏤𓀭, the divine beings worshiped in ancient 𓆎𓅓𓏏𓊖 (Egypt).  It refused, and was banished into Hell as a result.  There, דּוּמָה distinguished itself by maintaining the virtue of its behavior, even when forsaken by its Lord and surrounded by demons in a landscape so tainted with temptation that it corrupted every breath.  An age later, God deigned to notice the servant it had cast away like so much disobedient garbage, only to be surprised by its continued devotion; as a reward דּוּמָה was placed above the other denizens of Hell and the punishment of sinners was given unto it.  As Earth's population began to bloom like algae in a stagnant pool starting in 1927, דּוּמָה delegated this job to the angels of destruction that served it and came to Earth on a separate mission, willful but still in service to Heaven's ways.  Prayers multiplied as pray-ers multiplied, and דּוּמָה foresaw these congesting the divine processes, even if they went unanswered.  For the last century, it has walked the planet attempting to limit or eliminate what it considers to essentially be spirit-spam.  Rack Angel takes issue with this, of course.
• Notable Powers:  Messenger to All That Lives, Longing (renamed) from below.  Flight, Summon Angels of Destruction, thousand eyes, flaming sword (Immunity (fire), Nullify Summon, Damage, other fire powers), magic item with spell array, Movement (dimensional), Senses (analytical extended rapid vision that counters concealment and illusion and penetrates concealment, darkvision, distance sense, infravision low-light vision, ultravision, microscopic vision, dimensional).  Sonic Absorption, Sonic Immunity, Phase Cancellation linked with Silence, Sonic Masking, White Noise, Lamal's Rebuke, Mists of the Modrossus, the Second Wheel of Weyan, the Fifth Wheel of Weyan, the Seventh Wheel of Weyan, the Wondrous Working of Weyan, Fireflash, close Melt, Nova Burst, Warm, Danger Sense, Defensive Awareness, Aura Reading, Lie Detector, X-Ray Vision, Synesthesia from Power Profiles. (PL 16) 
• Λιμος:   Ursula started working at nix local homeless shelter/food bank/soup kitchen for reasons of simple compassion and idealism.  Not all action is picket signs and yelling and street brawls and demolitions, after all.  However, after merging with Elyktiel, nay discovered that there was more than simple capitalism and casino-economics to blame.  Drawn by his first cousin Catspaw's presence in the city, Λιμος (Limos, Famine) had taken up residence in Las Vegas's streets, doing his grim work among the homeless and poor so toxic to the tourist industry's bottom line.  Despite Λιμος's claims that he has a place in θέμις (else Ερις could never have given birth to him), both of Rack Angel's components take umbrage at the suffering he causes.  Their conflicts are the stuff of street-people legends and much speculation by the mainstream media (who usually lack the context to understand what the 30-foot glowing angel is doing on the rare occasion that Rack Angel has to take nix full form).
• Notable Powers:  Concealment, Detect Hunger, Detect Food, Feature (iron stomach), Transform Food Into Spoiled Food, Affliction (cause autocannibalism), perception ranged Damage linked to perception ranged broad Weaken Abilities (instant malnutrition), Illusion (limited to food), Movement (permeate, trackless), Nullify Healing.  Olympian template from Book of Magic.  Bio-Disruption (hunger), Sleep Deprivation, Dream Control (limited to dreams of feasts) from Power Profiles. (PL 15)
• Neon Nelly:  In Area 51, the military R&D force beneath Colonel Cadmus works to bend the secrets of alien technology and DNA to patriotic ends.  In order to maximize efficiency, several teams often work on one project.  Neon Nelly was one such, worked on by a team exploring extradimensional folding and a team exploring the use of light to affect and even compel the emotions of humans, as well as others.  The result, a transforming humanoid robot that can go from 6 feet to 60 feet tall and appears to be made of neon tubing that can wash the environment in light and flash, showed the flaw in this multi-team efficiency-maximizing setup.  Scraps of personality programming and uploaded personality templates coalesced around a core of military ideals and values to produce a confused mind unconcerned with loyalty and obedience to the project that produced her.  She broke free as soon as she could and escaped to Vegas, where she adopted a strip club as her family.  Serving the club as bodyguard and (after a suitable amount of self-tinkering) advertisement, Neon Nelly's confusion about who she is and strange ethics have occasionally led her into conflict with Rack Angel.  For nix part, Rack Angel has learned enough of Neon Nelly's story to feel a lot of compassion for her, an emotion nay has to balance against the need to prevent Nelly's excesses from harming the city.
  
  • Notable Powers:  Growth 12, Environment (light, visibility).  Hypnotic Strobe, Immunity to Light, Electrical Absorption, Electrical Resistance, Blackout, Mind Control, Psychic Vampirism from Power Profiles. (PL 14) 
• New Covenant Revelator:  Gabriella was the first human Elyktiel touched as it fell from grace.  The pastor's engineer daughter jumped at the chance to give her alcoholic father a more literal angel within the mechanical facsimile she had built for herself, a new and inspiring mascot for his church to prosper under.  She joined him in a night of drinking, hiding her tears from his bleary, unnoticing eyes, the night she saw a true angel's mind.  Elyktiel had quickly realized that she lacked the virtue it sought to save itself from demonhood.  Her only, obsessive, motivation was her love for her father and desire to pull him away from the alcohol that was killing him, even before it killed him.  There was a prayer there to be answered, to be sure, but it was a prayer that would be satisfied with merely its own answering.  There was no greater desire to see that prayers be answered, and so Elyktiel forsook its first handhold and risked once more the shattering of the fallen angel.  Luckily, it found Ursula later that night, but the entire experience has left Rack Angel with a desire to help New Covenant Revelator in her quest, and New Covenant Revelator with a thirst for vengeance against the angel who damned her father.
• Notable Powers:  Battlesuit.  Inspire, Contacts, Connected, Leadership, Luck. Startle, Trance, Defensive Attack, Evasion, Improved Aim, Improved Defense, Improved Disarm, Move-By Attack, Power Attack, Precise Attack, Takedown, Uncanny Dodge, Weapon Bind, Fearless, Interpose, Second Chance, Inventor, Create (Limited to Food), Healing.  Feature (flashlight, personal spotlight, light show, data-storage drive, remote), Blinding Aura, Dazzling Burst, Laser Weapon, Light Absorption, Photonic Shield, Lightflight, Healing Light, Illuminate, Solar Sustenance, Vision Enhancement, Strength Enhancement, Life Support System, Mind Shield, Sensory Shield, Communication System from Power Profiles.  (PL 10) 
• Ravella the Riverboat Queen:  Ravella had a pretty sweet gig set up in Las Vegas.  The immortal knew there were other mystical gamblers who could handle the small-time desperates or those looking for an occult thrill, but only she could offer the big scores.  Sure, the occasional djinn rolled through to enjoy the desert scenery, but she was the consistent one, the table everyone who needed to find could always find.  Then some bleeding-heart angel had to go and fall from heaven's grace, landing right here in Bugsy Siegel's playground.  The effing nerve of some metaphysical entities.  Concerned for her fortunes, she has taken what action she can to work any number of schemes aimed at getting Rack Angel to move somewhere else.  Of course, since she has so few powers that can benefit her directly, she has done this mostly by rather clever and hidden means.
  
  • Notable Powers:  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).  (PL 10) 
• The Hummingbird Thief/Solar Flare:  Before he turned his attention to misinterpreting Nahua religion and stealing priceless pre-Colombian artifacts (which, to be fair, had already been stolen by conquistadores and academic institutions), he had studied more Abrahamic magicks, including spells invoking peacock-winged Abriddon.  Abriddon is the archangel Elyktiel once served beneath, a deeply treasured friend of its, once.  Still.  Hopefully.  From time to time, Prof. Cullen has commanded Abriddon's power, bending its celestial force towards, frankly, racist ends.  When Rack Angel noticed this, nay was incensed at the prideful hubris of this ignorant human and pushed back in anger.  After the second or third time, the Hummingbird Thief developed quite the feeling of emnity for the giant angel.  Now he schemes the occasional scheme just to attempt to take Rack Angel off the board.  Being far less powerful than an actual angel, he often finds himself having to recruit the flaming ghost known as Emberwright to possess him so that they can face Rack Angel as Solar Flare. (PL 8)

"It is not because Angels are Holier than Men or Devils that makes them Angels but because they do not Expect Holiness from one another but from God only"
--William Blake, A Vision of the Last Judgment

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 Ursula & Rack Angel.  

Ursula looks like some combination of these three pictures:

Rack Angel looks like some combination of these three pictures:

"What will make you understand the uphill climb? It is the freeing of a slave. Or feeding on a day of severe hunger the close orphan or the needy person lying in the dust. Then he will become one of those with faith, who urge one another to have patience and urge one another to show compassion and mercy."
--Qur’an 90:12-17

Rack Angel (PC PL/Minion 14, NPC PL 12, Sidekick 42)
STR 0⇰8  AGI 3⇰4  FGT 1⇰2  AWE 2⇰3

STA 0⇰8  DEX 1  INT 3  PRE 4⇰8

Powers
A Union of Minds:  Enhanced Traits (Expertise: Theology +6, Expertise: Magic +6, Insight +2, Ritualist); Immunity 10 (life support) • 18 points
A Unity of Bodies:  Enhanced Advantage (Diehard) • 1 point
Longing:  Senses 4 (accurate acute radius divine mental awareness, dimensional) • 10 points
Messenger to All That Lives:  Comprehend 10 (animals 2, languages 4, plants, spirits 2) • 20 points
New Angelic Form:  Alternate form, requiring a standard action to activate • 66 points

• Floating Between Heaven and Earth:  Continuous Flight 3 • 9 points
• God's Elite:  Enhanced Traits (Agility +1, Fighting +1, Awareness +1, Presence +4, Fearless) • 15 points
• Halo:  Dynamic array • 12 points
• The Glow of God's Love:  Environment 4 (light 2) • 8 points
• Flashing Like a Star in the Firmament:  Visual perception area cumulative Affliction 4 (resisted and overcome by Fortitude; vision impaired, vision disabled, vision unaware), limited to one sense), alternate effect • 2 points
• Call to Your Soul: Perception ranged cumulative Affliction 4 (resisted and overcome by Will; impaired, disabled, incapacitated), subtle, variable descriptor—emotions) • 2 points
• None Shall Keep Me Out:  Movement 3 (permeate) • 6 points
• There Is No Stopping the Word of God:  Impervious Protection 4 • 8 points
• There Were Giants in the Earth in Those Days:  Permanent Growth 8 • 16 points

Vox Populi Vox Dei Est:  Continuous precise Variable 4 (wish-granter; affects others only, Feature: steals target's voice, variable descriptor 2) • 36 points
Advantages
Assessment, Connected, Defensive Attack, {Diehard}, Equipment 1, Evasion 1, Favored Foes (police officers, corporate agents), {⇰Fearless}, Improvised Weapon, Inspire 2, Leadership, {Ritualist}, Taunt, Well-Informed
Skills
Athletics 5 (+5⇰+13), Close Combat: Unarmed 2 (+3⇰+4), Expertise: Activism 7 (+10), Expertise: Magic 0 (+3=+9), Expertise: Theology 0 (+3=+9), Insight 3 (+5=+7⇰+6=+8), Intimidation 0 (+4⇰+12), Persuasion 3 (+7⇰+11), Stealth 2 (+5⇰‒2), Technology 2 (+5)
Offense
Initiative +3⇰+4
Unarmed +3⇰+4:  Close, Damage 0⇰8
Defense 
Dodge  0 (+3⇰0)
Fortitude  0 (0⇰+8)
Parry  4 (+5⇰+2)
Toughness  0⇰+12/+4i
Will  2 (+4⇰+5)
Size rank ‒2⇰0 (5'10"⇰30')
Ground speed rank 0⇰1 (2 mph⇰4 mph)
Flight speed rank 3 (15 mph)
Complications 
Motivation ~ Justice:  Both Ursula and Elyktiel had voices that went unheard in their quest for justice.  Ursula fought, at first peacefully and then not, to improve the Earthly world, and Elyktiel tried to convince Heaven to spend less time with its collective haloed head up its cloudy ass and more time responding to humanity's prayers.  As Rack Angel, nay takes a direct hand in improving lives and defeating those who would oppress and harm.
Voiceless: In human form, Ursula can speak normally though nix voice tends to the quieter of side; however, Rack Angel remains ever silent when in nix angelic form.  Nay has no voice of nix own, but when the Rack Angel (in either form) encounters someone who desperately wants something, nay can leverage the vestiges of omnipotence within nun to grant them that thing at the simple cost of their voice.  For the length of the Variable effect that granted that wish, Rack Angel can make use of that person’s voice in both of nix forms.

Power Point Totals:  Abilities 28 + Powers 151 + Advantages 13 + Skills 12 + Defenses 6 = 210

Todahlael, Habbalah of Ignorance*, Demon of Gratitude

Well, it's a day late and a dollar short, but I created a character for In Nomine encapsulating some of my feels/observations from yesterday (the so-called "Thanksgiving").  I'm actually quite fond of her.

She's a servitor of Ascetus, the balseraph demon prince of Ignorance and one of many non-canon Superiors in my version of In Nomine (which I call Reality Beulah, for reasons I'll explain later).  I'ven't written him up yet, but he's a blend of Ascetus and Astaroth from the In Nomine Collection's Rogue Gallery.  All relevant game information has been provided.

*****************

Todahlael, like many celestials, is a very old being.  She was created in Ketriel's service, and diligently, dispassionately served the aeon archangel of Grace for millions of years before the Fall.  And it wasn't the Fall that sent her to Hell, either, as she fought those who are now her friends and allies after Metatron's murder.  Afterwards, secure in the knowledge that the newly-minted demons were safely locked away forever, she continued just as she had before the Rebellion, bringing joyful surprises and easing luck to the humans who had been the excuse for that shocking crime.  And then the human Lilith freed the demons.

Though her faith that everything would turn out for the best by the grace of God had finally been shaken, Todahlael settled into the new role with which Ketriel, the first of the Archangels known as the Four Soteroi, charged its angels with an odd mix of comfort and desperation.  Salvation, after all, comes from many sources ~ famously, from grace, faith, and acts.  Todahlael and her coworkers coordinated well with Yves's angels, arranging for the sort of inexplicable gifts and luck that came at just the right time to rescue a human soul from becoming the plaything of the liberated demons.  But the entire time, she hid in her Heart a secret wish that someone would do the same for her, would restore her faith in the God which created her and rescue her from the Fate she feared she knew was awaiting her.

Ketriel had been clear in its charge ~ grace is not grace if it can be caused.  In other words, asking for grace destroys the possibility of grace.  Todahlael was nothing if not dutiful, and took the aeon's teaching to heart.  She never asked for the help she needed so greatly, and so she never received it.  Her Outcasting and Fall were slow, a creeping teeter that lasted from Lilith's unlocking the gates to Hell in 15,000 p.e.v. (prior era vulgaris, before the common era) all the way to her Heart shattering during the first part of the 4th century e.v., during Constantine the Great's reign as Byzantine Emperor.

Rejecting the gentleness of her past, Todahlael took up with Malphas, wielding unexpected luck as a weapon against relationships and unity.  Nothing promotes a lonely individuality like jealousy over a friend's seemingly unbalanced good fortune.  This work kept her busy for a millennium and a half, slowly working her way all over the globe, taking inconspicuous roles amongst the irredeemable throngs of the human herd.  Often, she chose to appear as a supporter of some alliance or solidarity, while secretly working to undermine it, to set it ablaze with the disastrous inferno of envy.

Like most of her friends in the service of Factions, the American Civil War was yet another orgy of a party in an increasingly dense social calendar.  Such joy Todahlael found as brother fought against brother, bloodily severing ties for often insignificant reasons.  General Lee, for example, who believed in the North's cause but fought for the South simply because it was his home.  It was one of Todahlael's friends who outmaneuvered the malakim surrounding the general, turning Lee's honor against the unifying actions Heaven wanted to see from him.

As so often happens, this constant din of fun and games lent itself to a moment of melancholy.  For Todahlael, this came when she read Lincoln's declaration of Thanksgiving (reproduced after this paraggraph).  A long-unaccustomed sadness struck the habbalah who couldn't help remembering her days with Ketriel as an angel, as the "[n]o human cousel [that] hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things."  She finished the war out with a dingy enthusiasm, unable to shake that memory, so incompatible with her habbalic belief that Hell was where God wanted her.  Returning to a familiar feeling ~ desperation ~ Todahlael sought to eliminate these memories and thoughts, to no longer be troubled by an unwelcome longing for the Light of Heaven.  If Mariel hadn't been devoured by a munchy-haunted Haagenti, she'd likely have pulled off some hare-brained scheme designed to remove herself from Malphas's service to that of Oblivion.  However, Mariel had proved tasty some centuries before, and so Todahlael settled for jumping ship into the service of Ascetus instead.

"The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign States to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict; while that theatre has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defence, have not arrested the plough, the shuttle, or the ship; the axe had enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battle-field; and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years, with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility and Union.

In testimony whereof, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this third day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-three, and of the independence of the United States the eighty-eighth."

Proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln, October 3, 1863."

The work of Ignorance didn't suit Todahlael as well as her previous two jobs, and it certainly did not have the memory-exorcising effect she wished.  She found herself obsessed with Thanksgiving Day, doing her prince's work by using it every month as a way to spread ignorance of the true cost of the pleasures and gifts the U.S. populace had received.  The rest of the year saw the fruits of Todahlael's practice for that one day in November; she grew quite deft at nurturing vague, impersonal gratitude as a way to prevent atrocities from coming to light or responsibility being taken for the actions of an individual, group, or their ancestors.  Ironically, she became known among Ascetus's servitors for exactly this kind of work.

Though she had been, quite naturally, stripped of all the gifts Malphas had given her in her 1500-year-service to the prince of Factions, Todahlael found herself quickly acquiring replacements over the course of a mere century serving Ascetus.  By the century's end, she was among Ascetus's knights, and she was granted a captainship shortly after Macy's started their parade.  Her focus, nigh unto a djinnish obsession, with the day in which an entire country ate more food than any other day, even more than a few days combined, convinced Haagenti to grant her his attunement, as well.

It was Thanksgiving Day, 1954, that Todahlael, firmly ensconced in the role of a sweet little old church lady, led a prayer at a charity dinner her church was leading.  Afterwards, a snappily dressed man who had been introduced to her an hour or two before as one of the big donors to the church's charity programs walked up to her.  "I liked your prayer," he said.  "Especially how it avoided any of the real reasons we've got all this food to give.  And why they're poor, for that matter.  It's you who should be Grateful."  And suddenly, Todahlael knew who the handsome man was, as she felt the Word shoulder itself a space among her Forces.  She stammered out a "Thank you" to the man's bemusedly cocked eyebrow, one half of his mouth smiled, and he turned and disappeared into the crowd.

Ever since, Todahlael has continued the same work that earned her her Word, encouraging humans to mimic the humble selflessness of thanks as a way of avoiding guilt, responsibility, or critical thought as to what they could do to prevent the evil of the world.  Not a few demons distrust her now, uncertain what to do with a demon ~ especially one of the habbalot ~ who carries such a seemingly Heavenly Word.  To tell the truth (but why would we do that?), Todahlael herself has struggled with her Word, as it is all too easy for her efforts to have the opposite effect of that she intended.  Her doubts about her place in the Descending Hierarchy have fled, however.  God's Hellish representative (Lucifer) rewarded her for her efforts, after all ~ this must be the work God wants her to do.

Todahlael is still adjusting to having received a Word, and such a big Word at that!  She's only held it for about 65 years, two-fifths of her time in the service of Ascetus, and a mere fraction of an eyeblink for a being whose age is measured in the billions of years, which accounts for her possessing only a single Word-Attunement when most celestials with such a Word have two.  In truth, she knows that she has access to fewer Word-Forces than she should ~ surely Gratitude is a major Word! ~ but she's been facing some strong opposition from Maodea, her Heavenly counterpart, the angel of Giving Thanks (ofan of the Sword under Etiquette), who's been getting aid from the angel of Charity (a malak of Generosity) and the angel of Restitution (an eloah of Judgment).  The inherent dangers of her Word, on top of the lasting effects of her earlier doubts concerning her diabolicity, have resulted in a bit of Discord.  Todahlael's vessel's stoop and slow gait aren't intended to mimic arthritis ~ they are actually arthritis, and will be carried over into any other vessel she might take.  Similarly, she finds a good feast almost impossible to pass up, and she always overeats.

Celestial Appearance:  Todahlael has allowed the ravages of age to show on her celestial form.  It remains luminous, glowing with a grayish-brown light the color of poorly-cooked meat, and her eyes appear even larger than they did before the Fall behind broad-diametered rose-colored coke-bottle glasses.  They are human eyes, though, not the alien eyes of the elohim, and they are a much more pleasant brown than the light which surrounds her, the color of a crispy, fatty turkey skin promising delicious delights beneath.  Whereas elohim tend to carry an ageless, vital androgyny, Todahlael's Fallen form is androgynous by dint of age, so withered and twisted and stick-thin dry that no gender can be ascertained among the pale wrinkles that envelop her form.  It is those wrinkles that provide a topographical map to the self-mutilations that mark Todahlael as a habbalah.  Piercings ride the crest of these fleshy waves, while tattoos peek out from their valleys.  Scars artfully interrupt their sumptuous curves, and the twin edges of her flayed edges blend imperceptibly into the ridges of ancient skin.  No clothing covers her form, though a couple of napkins seem to have blown against her chest and crotch, stuck there by a wind unseen and unfelt except by those napkins' flapping.  A fork and a knife (to which is attached the flag of whichever country the nearest human is a citizen of) fill her hands.

Vessel:  An older woman in her 80s, shorter than her skeleton would actually warrant thanks to a stoop that tells of long hours spent hunched over a keyboard.  Her hair is the faded black of a cheap dyejob covering up a soft silver, and her brown eyes are filled with a watery-warm sincerity.  Cat-eyes glasses on a pearled string often rest atop a pale blue sweater that covers up a long, floral dress.  Her shoes are reasonable, and her nails sport a new pastel every other week.

Total Forces ~ 12
Word-Forces ~ 9
Corporeal Forces ~ 4  Strength 8  Agility 8
Ethereal Forces ~ 3  Intelligence 7  Precision 5
Celestial Forces ~ 5  Will 12  Perception 8
Vessel ~ Human/1
Role ~ Little Old Church Lady/4 (Status/2)
Servant ~ Pastor/2 (Class/4)
Skills ~ Artistry (Cooking)/4, Computer Operation/2, Emote/5, Savoir-Faire/3, Singing/1
Attunements ~ Captain of Twisted Memory**, Demon of Gratitude***, Habbalah of Gluttony, Habbalah of Ignorance****, Knight of Stupidity*****, Memory Gap******, Modern Dark Age*******
Songs ~ Charm (Ethereal/6, Celestial/3), Forbidding (Ethereal/3), Harmony (Corporeal/6), Opening (Ethereal/3, Celestial/1), Seals (Ethereal/5), Solace (Ethereal/5), Succor (Corporeal/2)
Additional Rites ~ Lead a prayer (or equivalent) of impersonal or vague thanks; Spend an hour in conversation, monologue, or writing (et cetera) downplaying/ignoring/covering up past or present atrocities
Discord ~ Disabled/3********, Gluttonous/1, Pity/1, Obsessed (Thanksgiving)/1

*  It is dissonant for a servitor of Ascetus to correct any belief that goes against the facts, or to promote education or enlightenment.  Rites:  Convince someone not to think twice; Spread a lie to the public, by posting it to the Net, handing out flyers in the street for an hour, etc.
**  These are the most feared vassals of Ignorance, as they can twist known and unknown concepts into knots that cannot be deciphered. By spending 4 essence, they can change a 'truth' into whatever they chose. For example, they could change the answers in the back of a particular book, change a few 1's to 0's in machine code, or make a Macintosh a real computer, but they couldn't change pi to equal 4 or any universally affecting 'constant'.
***  As long as someone is even vaguely or indirectly experiencing pleasure, Todahlael can cause them to ignore one unpleasant thing per point of Essence spent, with a successful Will roll.  The Attunement's effects only last as long as the specific pleasure does, though events during its effects can prolong the results.  Normally, this Attunement must be activated individually for each intended victim; however, if Todahlael cooks a feast to be used as the anchoring pleasure, the Attunement will affect a number of people equal to the check digit of her Artistry (Cooking) roll with each activation.
****  Same as Habbalah of Factions.
*****  By concentrating on someone and spending one essence, the knight can sense the one thing that the person has little or no knowledge, but wishes to learn about.  {And, yes, "stupidity" is a word with a long ableist, racist, and classist history.  This is Hell we're talking about, after all.}
******  The demon can cause a target to forget a specific piece of information. This requires a Contest of Will vs. the target's Perception; the demon may spend Essence to add to his will. The check digit determines the type of information that can be erased:
Check Digit~Information Lost
1~Something minor in short-term memory (a name or phone number just heard)
2~Something major in short-term memory (the just-heard time and place of a meeting)
3~Something minor in medium/long-term memory (the phone number at work; your spouse's middle name)
4~Something major in medium/long-term memory (the exit to get to your parents' house; the password to your AOL account)
5~Something minor in long-term memory (the name of your first-grade teacher)
6~Something major in long-term memory (your wedding anniversary; the Pythagorean Theorem)
Information lost in this way will be "on the tip of your tongue" or misremembered in such a way as to be useless. The target can be reminded of it, but must make a Will roll; the information is not retained until a successful roll is made.
*******  By spending 2 essence per person the demon wishes to affect (to a maximum of his celestial forces) he can have them interpret a sign, image, or oration the wrong way, or ignore the enlightening effects of teachers and books (negating any potential for learning from that source) for one day.
********  "Crippled" is a slur.

Death doesn't make me not a dad (Mutants & Masterminds, 3e)

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

Recurrent Allies:

• 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

The Hummingbird Thief (Mutants & Masterminds 3e)

Professor Clive Cullen

"We can have no significant understanding of any culture unless we also know the silences that were intentionally created and guaranteed along with it."
--Gerald Sider
 
Colonizers have been getting the religions of those they colonized for centuries.  The tradition dates back to long before the current European-dominated colonialist backwash.  Professor Clive Cullen is just one more of a sadly long line.  He doesn't realize it, of course ~ do they ever? ~ but then again he has a bit of an excuse.  His misinterpretation somehow managed to drum up some actual magickal power.  I blame chaos magick; it's got too much insight into the way the world works with too few of the imprecations to introspection that serve to water the twin ferns of morality and ethics.

Clive began as a rather nebbish professor, with a paunch somewhat larger than the one he sports currently and stock in the company that manufactured the leather-elbowed tweed coats he loved so much.  His specialty was the anthropology of religion; he'd earned his Ph.D. with a thesis exploring Middle Eastern folktales involving the interactions between the androgynous peacock-winged archangel Abbridon who was invoked to reveal truth, Lamal the Law-Giver who was another of the Three Powers of the Modrossus, and the pain demon Shatachna who was known as the Iron Queen.  Specifically, Clive was fascinated by a genre of tale in which the three worked together to achieve some necessary end.  Two angels and a demon, all united in the revelation of reality ~ a simply engrossing challenge to traditional moralities.

"Who could truly set His shield to rest?
His throne? His mighty spear?
Think on that. Remember it well, O princes.
Who could lay waste to Tenochtitlan?
Who dares assail the foundation of heaven?"
--David Bowles, Flower, Song, Dance: Aztec and Mayan Poetry

Clive would have walked through the world this way, pipe in hand, all his life, had it not been for a chance encounter at a conference in Amherst, which introduced him to things like the quetzal bird, and Fray Diego Duran's theory that Quetzalcoatl was St. Thomas, and the huehuetlatolli, and Nezahualcoyotl's haunting meditations on the interplay between earthly pleasures and the certainty of death, and all manner of such things.  Intrigued, Professor Cullen began several years of a slow, creeping total shift in his research from one continent to another.  He didn't fully abandon his original research, however, turning in his spare time to the interminable and interlocking initiations of any number of magickal secret societies (he himself certainly lost count).  Somewhere along the way, he even began to unlock the secrets of a couple of spells, two invoking Abbridon, two in Lamal's name, and a fifth calling Shatachna's dread power.

He finally got himself a job at the University of Nevada in Las Vegas studying pre-Columbian Nahua religion.  His explorations continued, as did the intrusions of what he thought he knew into what he was trying to learn.  The ways of the teteo became twisted by interpretations founded in Middle Eastern religions and Christian theology and Freud.  It's always fucking Freud, isn't it?  But somewhere along the way, he had the bright idea of mixing in what he thought he knew to the thaumaturgies he'd begun to comprehend.

"How we devour one another's culture, do so without shame--ideas like water, free flowing and able to take on other forms. Able to flood highways, level entire cities if summoned with enough force."
--J. Andrew Schrecker, Insomniacs, We

Colin never understood the Aubin Codex.  Not really.  He thought he'd come up with a radical new interpretation of how Huitzilopochtli had stolen the Chichimeca, turned them into Mexica, and done somewhat similar with his sister's heart.  It was complete bullshit, of course, but mixing it into some Hermetic practices with a lot of Nahua dressing and some plumas turned out, somehow, to have some sort of power.  He discovered a spell that allowed him to harvest the motion of those whose blood he spills and concentrate it within himself, dramatically increasing his speed.

He quickly crossed paths with the hero known as Catspaw when the two happened to be robbing the same casino museum on the same night.  Dikadora was allowing herself to be used as a cat burglar by New Covenant Regulator, stealing artifacts brought to this continent in the bloody hands of the conquistadores, relics of the Lord of Peace which battered upon the heads and bodies of the Native Americans.  Clive sought a tecpatl, a sacrifical obsidian knife, that was supposed to have belonged to a powerful and ancient Quetzalcoatl Totec Tlamacazqui.  The two fought like a cat and a bird.  Clive got away with the tecpatl, but Catspaw failed to nab the relic she sought, distracted by the fight and the failed chase.  She broke back in to the casino museum that night only to find the relic gone, but that story has nothing to do with the Hummingbird Thief, as she dubbed him.  I'm sure I'll get around to telling it sometime.

"She recalled her absurd attempt to construct an example—an image that, because it was constructed of things it simply did not fit, reversed the idea into an idea silly by itself, ridiculous in application—a ridiculousness that could easily, she saw, have strayed into the pernicious, the odious, or the destructive, depending on how widely one had insisted on applying it."
--Samuel Delany, The Tales of Neveryon

Home Base:  Las Vegas.
Gender:  Cismale
Sexuality:  Straight vanilla
Romantic Identity:  Monogamous aromantic

"We all are influenced by things and copy things, but often where there is a certain level of copying, only the surface value ends up being reproduced and that becomes thinner and thinner. I feel like a lot of appropriation suffers from that."
--Jason Fulford

Recurrent Foes:

• Vincenzo Sangiovanni:  Vincenzo is older than the Mafia, but few people know that outside of the other vampires in the city.  He fled the last gasps of the Renaissance on the mainland to Sicily, and history was made.  Now he owns a casino and has a position in the Mafia far below what he deserves.  He likes it that way: fewer people bothering him about the kind of minutiae the living seem to think are so important.  He ran afoul of the Hummingbird Thief for the first time when he opened an Aztec-themed casino on the Strip.  Clive, oblivious to his own cultural appropriation, was unduly incensed at Vincenzo's.
  
  • 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)
• Tonka Truck:  This Lakota wicasa wakan comes from a post-apocalyptic future where they lead a combine of truckers supplying a wasted west with food, medical supplies, and mail service.  One of the artifacts on display in one of the casinos when the bombs dropped had some sort of reaction with the radioactivity and tore a rip through time.  Tonka Truck found it and came here, now, hoping to prevent his future from coming about.  He claims that defeating the Hummingbird Thief is somehow part of that mission.
• Notable Powers:  (PL 11) A sizeable magical array of spells (Animate Machines, Control Technology, Deactivate Technology, Disassemble, Assemble, Interface, Manipulate Technology, Sensor Masking, and Sensor Network from Powers Profile, for example), tricked-out technomagical dumptruck, Artificer, various junk-magic devices, tech spirit allies.
• Catspaw:  As mentioned, they ran into each other trying to steal different things from the same museum.  Since then, they have engaged off and on in, shall we say, cat and bird chases whenever they would run into each other.  On more than one occasion, werecats of the Qualmi, Pumonca, and especially the Balam tribes have contacted Catspaw to task her with frustrating one of Clive's schemes or recover something he had acquired that he shouldn't have.
  The Hummingbird Thief tends to be a more straightforward opponent for Catspaw than her usual targets, as he isn't trying to exert influence against her.  This sometimes comes as a relief to the werecat, but at other times feels frustrating; she has once or twice tried (and failed) to educate him out of his unconsidered racism. (PL 10)
  
• Ravella the Riverboat Queen:  Younger than Don Sangiovanni, but immortal nonetheless, she began making big bets and keeping cards up her sleeve on the Mississippi some 200 years ago or so.  Her death was gambled away to a demon, and so she's still kicking aorund.  Ravella's come to love the thrill.  She'll bet on anything, with anyone ~ as long as it's big enough, and she's been around to see some big pots.  Catspaw had heard of her and called her in to challenge the Hummingbird Thief to a game of cards with his knowledge of the Nahua at stake.  Ravella still hasn't forgiven him for winning.
  
  • 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)
• Trademark:  Pierce Draper, the dream-controlling advertising agent, sees lots of value in the Hummingbird Thief and his image.  At first, he simply appropriated the Hummingbird Thief as a mascot, seeding dreams throughout the nation of him wearing various brands of shoes and other clothing.  Clive did not take well to such non-academic fame, which led to Trademark trying again, but this time to advertise a line of children's books about the Aztecs.  That fell apart over arguments about money.  Mr. Draper had the most success when trying to use his powers to "convince" Professor Cullen to film commercials for his clients.  The relationship between the two has continued in this fashion, with contentious alliance after contentious alliance.
  • Notable Powers:  (PL 9) Benefit (wealth), Connected, Inspire, Trance.  Features (Fast Sleeper, Light Sleeper, Lucid Dreamer), Sleepless, Dream Mastery, and Psychic Vampirism (Asleep as third degree) from Power Profiles.
• La Malinchista:  UFO abductions don't just happen in the States.  Concepcion Lopez is one such abductee; it was the scariest moment in her life.  Concepcion's proudest moment was when her daughter, Marina, joined the AEM.  Little did she know that this would bring Marina into contact with the species that implanted her within Concepcion's egg.  Falling in love over interstellar radio with one of the aliens, Marina agreed to serve as the invading force's agent on Earth, preparing it for easier conquest as the supervillain La Malinchista.  Area 51 was part of that plan, so she emigrated to the US, where she ran afoul of both Corporal Cadmus and the Hummingbird Thief.  The first was because of her mission, the second because of how poorly he treated the culture of her ancestors.
• Notable Powers:  (PL 8) High Presence, high interaction skills, Attractive 2, Affliction (horniness; entranced, compelled, limited degree), Communication (olfactory), Weaken Awareness.  Cosmic Awareness, Universal Translation (expanded language, animals, machines) from Power Profiles.

Recurrent Allies:

• Emberwight:  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.
• Notable Powers:  (PL 8) Skin-rider from Supernatural Handbook.  Death Stare, Death Touch, Death's Gate, Death Sight, Death Vision, Speak With the Dead, Feature (deathly aura, tiny flame, cooking from the inside, flaming Presence bonus), Fireball (Soulfire), Fiery Breath (Soulfire), Fire Blast (Soulfire), Flame Aura (Soulfire), Immolate (Soulfire), Heatstroke, Melt, Smoke Cloud (Linked to Suffocation with Area), Fire Shield, Heat Absorption, Immunity to Heat, Infravision, Pyrokinesis, Warm from Powers Profile.
  

"The fleeting pomps of the world are like the green willow trees, which, aspiring to permanence, are consumed by a fire, fall before the axe, are upturned by the wind, or are scarred and saddened by age.
The grandeurs of life are like the flowers in color and in fate; the beauty of these remains so long as their chaste buds gather and store the rich pearls of the dawn and saving it, drop it in liquid dew; but scarcely has the Cause of All directed upon them the full rays of the sun, when their beauty and glory fail, and the brilliant gay colors which decked forth their pride wither and fade.
The delicious realms of flowers count their dynasties by short periods; those which in the morning revel proudly in beauty and strength, by evening weep for the sad destruction of their thrones, and for the mishaps which drive them to loss, to poverty, to death and to the grave. All things of earth have an end, and in the midst of the most joyous lives, the breath falters, they fall, they sink into the ground.
All the earth is a grave, and nought escapes it; nothing is so perfect that it does not fall and disappear. The rivers, brooks, fountains and waters flow on, and never return to their joyous beginnings; they hasten on to the vast realms of Tlaloc, and the wider they spread between their marges the more rapidly do they mould their own sepulchral urns. That which was yesterday is not to-day; and let not that which is to-day trust to live to-morrow.
The caverns of earth are filled with pestilential dust which once was the bones, the flesh, the bodies of great ones who sate upon thrones, deciding causes, ruling assemblies, governing armies, conquering provinces, possessing treasures, tearing down temples, flattering themselves with pride, majesty, fortune, praise and dominion. These glories have passed like the dark smoke thrown out by the fires of Popocatepetl, leaving no monuments but the rude skins on which they are written.
Ha! ha! Were I to introduce you into the obscure bowels of this temple, and were to ask you which of these bones were those of the powerful Achalchiuhtlanextin, first chief of the ancient Toltecs; of Necaxecmitl, devout worshiper of the gods; if I inquire where is the peerless beauty of the glorious empress Xiuhtzal, where the peaceable Topiltzin, last monarch of the hapless land of Tulan; if I ask you where are the sacred ashes of our first father Xolotl; those of the bounteous Nopal; those of the generous Tlotzin; or even the still warm cinders of my glorious and immortal, though unhappy and luckless father Ixtlilxochitl; if I continued thus questioning about all our august ancestors, what would you reply? The same that I reply—I know not, I know not; for first and last are confounded in the common clay. What was their fate shall be ours, and of all who follow us.
Unconquered princes, warlike chieftains, let us seek, let us sigh for the heaven, for there all is eternal, and nothing is corruptible. The darkness of the sepulchre is but the strengthening couch for the glorious sun, and the obscurity of the night but serves to reveal the brilliancy of the stars. No one has power to alter these heavenly lights, for they serve to display the greatness of their Creator, and as our eyes see them now, so saw them our earliest ancestors, and so shall see them our latest posterity."
--Nezahualcoyotl

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 the Hummingbird Thief.  He looks like some combination of these five pictures:

"The fact that we restored Teotihuacan or that Father Garibay labours to translate Aztec poems brings no benefit to the Indians, adds not a single tortilla to their daily diet. We adorn ourselves with their jewels, excavate the earth to turn up their ancient artifacts, but we stubbornly ignore their rags, protect the men who steal their lands, fail to punish their exploiters... We have one attitude toward the dead Indians, a very different one toward the living. The dead Indians excite our admiration, stimulate a stream of tourists; the living Indians make us blush with shame, give a hollow ring to our fine words of progress and democracy"
--Fernando Benítez, "Los Indios de México"

The Hummingbird Thief (PL 8)
STR 0  AGI 0  FGT 0  AWE 1
STA 0  DEX 1  INT 4  PRE 0 
Powers
Stolen Tecpatl:  Easily removable Str-based Damage 2 (piercing), accurate 6, concealable, dangerous 4, impressive, indestructible • 9 points
All-Seeing Eyes of Abbridon the Lantern of Heaven (spell):  Remote Sensing 2 (visual, auditory, mental) • 8 points
Illumination of Abbridon the Lantern of Heaven (spell):  Environment 2 (bright light), feature 1 (equal to daylight) • 5 points
Legate Lamal’s Mighty Hands (spell): Move Object 2, Precise, Subtle • 6 points
Light of Legate Lamal (spell):  Ranged Affliction 4 (resisted and overcome by Will DC 14; controlled), progressive, limited degree, limited to speaking the truth • 4 points
Shatachna's Seal of Silence (spell):  Perception ranged Affliction 3 (resisted and overcome by Will DC 13; controlled), progressive, limited degree, limited to communication, limited to specific information • 6 points
That Which is Owed to the Hummingbird Thief (spell):  Weaken Movement Traits 8 (broad, incurable, check required: Expertise: Magic 5, limited to only after spilling the person’s blood) • 4 points
Paynal's Song (spell effect):  Dynamic Array (8 points) • 24 points total

• Enhanced Speed 16, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 8 points (1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Winged Flight 16, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points (1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Multiattack Strength-based Damage 4, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement, precise, penetrating 4 • 2 points (1 + 1 point per additional rank + 1/rank of penetrating)
• Enhanced Dodge 14, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement, precise • 2 points (1 + 1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Parry 8, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points (1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Quickness 14, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement, precise • 2 points (1 + 1 point per 2 ranks)
• Enhanced Advantage (Improved Initiative) 16, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points (1 point per 2 ranks)
• Movement 2 (wall-crawling, water-walking), limited to while moving, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points.
• Concealment 4 (visual), limited to while moving, limited to power points drained with Weaken Movement • 2 points

Advantages
Beginner’s Luck, Benefit (wealth 2), Equipment 1 (camera, smartphone), Evasion, Fascinate (Expertise: Teaching), Languages 4 (Arabic, French, German, Hebrew, Latin, Nahuatl, Quiche Maya, Spanish), Instant Up, Ritualist, Seize Initiative, Uncanny Dodge
Skills
Expertise: Anthropology 8 (+12), Expertise: History 10 (+14), Expertise: Magic 6 (+10), Expertise: Teaching 10 (+14), Investigation 4 (+8), Technology 10 (+14), Vehicles 6 (+7)
Offense
Initiative +0 (up to +64 while Paynal's Song is active)
Tecpatl +12:  Close, Damage 2 (piercing; up to 6 with Multiattack while Paynal's Song is active), Crit 16-20
The Light of Legate Lamal +1:  ranged, Will DC 14, compelled to tell the truth
What is Owed 0:  Fortitude DC 18, lose power points from Movement traits
Unarmed 0:  Close, Damage 0 (up to 4 with Multiattack while Paynal's Song is active)
Defense
Dodge  0 (up to 14 while Paynal's Song is active)
Fortitude  0 
Parry  0 (up to 8 while Paynal's Song is active)
Toughness  0
Will  2
Ground speed rank 0 (2 mph; up to 16, 125,000 mph, while Paynal's Song is active)
Flight speed rank -- (up to 16, 125,000 mph, while Paynal's Song is active)
Complications
Intellectually Arrogant:  Clive has a tendency to trust what he reads in books or the conclusions he draws therefrom over the theories of others or, in fact, the lived experiences of the people he studies.  This has not endeared him to the Jews, Arabs, occultists, pious Christians, Nahua, or Maya that he has objectified ~ I mean, studied.  He doesn't have a reputation, per se, but his attitudes usually become apparent rather quickly, as he lectures and corrects people (wrongly) on the culture they were raised in.
Motivation ~ Knowledge:  Clive isn't in the supervillain business for money or revenge or power.  He just wants to know things because he likes knowing things.  Well, he likes thinking he knows things.  More than one of his supervillainous plots have been attempts to force one of his fallacious interpretations of native American and Mesoamerican culture to be true.

Power Point Totals:  Abilities 12 + Powers 66 + Advantages 14 + Skills 27 + Defenses 1 = 120