Characters with a Date with Destiny

[Michael Hopcroft]

How would you model a character who is the subject of a terrible prophecy, and consequently is being hunted down by almost everybody on the planet?

The new swords-and-sorcery anime Scrapped Princess features as its heroine the young girl who is, according to almost eveeryone, destined to destroy the world on her sixteenth birthday. Everyone knows about the prophecy, and ALMOST everyone wants to kill her because of it. Her only protectors are her two adopted siblings (her royal parents abandoned her to her fate so fast they didn;t even give her a name). She is not an evil person and does not want to see the world destoryed. Now the prohpecy does not say HOW she will destory the world, just that she will. Putting the poor girl into an almost unbearable moral dilemma that challenges her compassion, her conscience, and her very will to live.

Can such a character be written up in HERO terms?

[lemming]

Quite easily. She doesn't seem to have much going for her except the excuse to be more apathetic and gloomy than the typical Vampire player. :D

[Michael Hopcroft]

In the episode I've seen her siblings mainly tried to keep her out of harm's way, so it's kind of hard to tell from what I've seen what her capabilities are.But she isn't particularly gloomy (she enjoys good food and drink, for example, and complains loudly when she doesn't get it) or apathetic (she is bound and determined NOT to destroy the world, but at the same time euqally determined to live for those who care about her).

All the while, aside from her two adopted siblings, everyone else treats her in the curelest way imaginable. The episode I saw was obviously not the first time she has ben told things like "Your very existence is a sin!" and "You are poison to this world!" by people determined to snuff out her life (the only way they can see to prevent the prophecy from coming true). She must have a few dice of Luck to have survived infancy (her real, royal parents abandoned her to her fate so quickly they didn't even bother to name her) and growing up.

[zefiris]

don't rush to model Pacifica just quite yet. You'll also have to model several of her latent abilies including "Providence Breaker", and her immunities to "Peace maker".

[Crimson Arrow]

I'd just give her 50 points in Hunted, plus a Social Limitation for when people find out who she is.

I don't know the source material at all, but it strikes me as being like one of those Celtic stories about people subject to gesas (sorry, might have got the spelling wrong).

You know, by trying to destroy her, someone will cause the end of the world on her 16th birthday, which wouldn't have happened had people not thought she was going to cause the end of the world.

[BobGreenwade]

Like Crimson Arrow, I don't know the source material, but from the description it sounds like an Extreme Reputation, possibly with a Hunted thrown in. If the prophecy about the end of the world on her 16th birthday is true, a Physical Limitation (Infrequently, Fully) might be in order as well.

[Tempuswolf]

As others have posted this is a matter of finding the right disadvantages:

15 Distinctive Features: World's Doom (Not Concealable, Causes Extreme Reaction, Detectable Only By Prophetic Senses)

Hunteds if others who believe the prophecy and are actively trying to prevent it; watched if they want the prophecy to come true. Reputation if the prophecy, her existence, and the connection is more widely known.

I wouldn't point up a Megascale World Scrubber unless she herself believes the prophecy and is actively trying to pursue it. In that case let her buy it (maybe incrementally); otherwise, GM's fiat would be best.

[Vanulf]

I think at least a reputation, as well as a psychological (or physical ) disadvantage with extreme reaction