CHAR: Zelig

[James Gillen]

Leonard Zelig

 

Val Characteristic Base Cost

 

10 STR 10 0 Lift 100 kg; 2d6 [1]

11 DEX 10 3 OCV: 4 / DCV: 4

10 CON 10 0

10 BODY 10 0

13 INT 10 3 INT Roll: 12-

10 EGO 10 0 ECV: 3

10 PRE 10 0

8 COM 10 -1

2 PD 2 0 Total PD: 2

2 ED 2 0 Total ED: 2

2 SPD 2.1 -1 Phases: 6, 12

4 REC 5 0

20 END 26 0

20 STUN 22 0

 

Total 4

 

Running 6â€/12â€

 

POWERS

 

6 Social Chameleon: Shape Shift into any humanoid (20), Sight and Touch Groups (+3) Reduced Endurance/ 0 END (+1/2) = 35 -Extra Time/1 Minute (-1 ½), Only to Imitate the People He’s With (-1), No Conscious Control (-2)

 

12 Behavior Emulation: Variable Power Pool (10 Points), Control Cost (5), No Skill Roll Required to Change (+1), No Conscious Control (-2), Linked to Shape Shift/Only to Imitate Skills of the People He’s With (-1/2)

 

18 Powers Total

 

SKILLS/TALENTS

17 Acting 18-

15 Mimicry 18-

2 CK: New York City: 11-

 

34 Skills Total

 

56 TOTAL

 

DISADVANTAGES (+0)

HUNTED by psychiatric authorities, 8- 10

(More Powerful, NCI, Watching)

Psychological Limitation: Desperately 20

Wants to Be Liked (very common,

Strong)

Social Limitation: Famous 10

 

Experience 16

Total 56

 

 

Background: Leonard Zelig was born in the early 20th Century in New York, in a crowded immigrant neighborhood where he frequently had to deal with anti-Semitic prejudice as a child. Worse than that, he had to live with a family that argued constantly and violently. In fact, while the Zeligs lived above a bowling alley, it was the bowling alley that called to complain about the noise.

 

While most of his siblings grew up to become rather dysfunctional adults, Leonard became a quiet and well-mannered person, attracting little attention until the early 1920s, when during a dinner at a Chinese restaurant, he suddenly started to resemble a Chinese, even speaking passable Mandarin. Startled onlookers called the authorities, who had Zelig taken to a New York mental institution, and to the surprise of the doctors, by the time he got out of the ambulance, he had lost all of his Chinese features and now claimed to be an accredited doctor. He was successful enough in this pose that he convinced other doctors who were unfamiliar with his case. It soon became clear that Zelig would perfectly imitate anyone in proximity to him, down to the physical characteristics.

 

Most of the doctors in New York tried to explain this case in terms of currently fashionable physiological theories, but a young psychiatrist named Eudora Fletcher asserted that Zelig’s problem was purely psychological. Using hypnosis, she got Zelig to admit that his driving need was a need to be liked, to fit in. While the rest of the medical community was skeptical of the “woman doctor,†the institution let her continue her work with Leonard. In the meantime, the “Human Chameleon†became the talk of New York City and then the world, with the doctors sending people in for Zelig to imitate; for instance he stood next to two fat men and in the course of their conversation, his weight went up to 250 pounds. The media kept up the publicity, and Zelig became a major celebrity and the subject of songs like “Do the Chameleonâ€, “Reptile Eyes†and “You May Be Six People, But I Love You.â€

 

Dr. Fletcher became fascinated with her patient, but while she continued to work with him, Leonard’s older sister suddenly announced that she was taking custody of him, and removed him from the institution. Dr. Fletcher was skeptical, especially since the sister had just married an unscrupulous ex-circus promoter. Zelig’s sister and brother-in-law soon took Zelig on a highly successful world tour, enhancing Leonard’s fame but reducing him to the status of freak. Audiences around the world were amazed at his ability to change his shape and mannerisms. In Paris, he had a public debate with two Jewish religious scholars, transforming into a rabbi in mere minutes. This alteration was so convincing that several Frenchmen suggested that Zelig be sent to Devil’s Island.

 

However, in Spain, Zelig’s sister embarked on a passionate affair with a Madrid bullfighter, and when the husband caught them in her hotel room, he shot them both then turned the gun on himself. Zelig was abandoned. For some time, his whereabouts were unknown, despite the attempts of Dr. Fletcher to find him. Eventually, he was spotted in Rome after a disturbance at the Vatican where he seemed to think he was a Cardinal in the Pope’s retinue. After this scandal, Dr. Fletcher managed to get Leonard back to America. With the permission of her superiors, Dr. Fletcher took Leonard to a quiet retreat in upstate New York to perform more hypnosis sessions, which she had an assistant film. At first Leonard caused problems because he emulated Dr. Fletcher and insisted that *he* was a doctor and didn’t need counseling. Dr. Fletcher then resorted to a reverse-psychology tactic and “admitted†that she wasn’t a real doctor, and asked Dr. Zelig for professional help. This brought Leonard to the point of breakdown as he had to admit he wasn’t qualified to help her. At this point, he had to ask himself who he really was, and he agreed to let Dr. Fletcher work on him.

 

During Zelig’s rehabilitation, Dr. Fletcher started to fall in love with her patient, and when he admitted that he was in love with her, Eudora agreed to get engaged. Both had reached the happiest point in their lives. However, a news scandal broke out when a young actress claimed to be Zelig’s wife from a prior marriage, claiming that Zelig, posing as an actor, had married her and fathered her child. And Zelig couldn’t exactly deny the charges, being forced to admit that he could have done such things while in another personality. This opened the floodgates to all number of lawsuits, with Zelig being charged with bigamy, theft, and improper dental extractions. It was impossible for Zelig to defend himself legally or in the court of public opinion. Dr. Fletcher was more worried that the stress would cause Leonard to revert to form and start changing again. One afternoon they went out to an ethnic restaurant when Zelig suddenly grew a mustache and started turning Greek. Dr. Fletcher tried to get Zelig help, but one day, he vanished and escaped all attempts to track his whereabouts. A nationwide manhunt was called. Reports of him were given as far a field as Texas and Mexico, but nothing was confirmed.

 

After months of this, Dr. Fletcher became despondent. Her sister decided to take her out for a night on the town, going to the movies. The theater showed a newsreel including coverage of Adolf Hitler and his rise to prominence in Germany. To her astonishment, Dr. Fletcher looked and realized that one of the Brownshirt troopers in the group with Hitler resembled Zelig. Eudora took a trip to Europe as soon as she could. Hitler’s Nazi Party was just making its challenge for a majority in Parliament, and before the next round of elections it was going to hold its largest rally to date. Dr. Fletcher deduced that Zelig would be there with him. At first it was hard for Dr. Fletcher to find Zelig in the crowd but saw him in the speakers’ box behind Hitler himself. Waving to Leonard, Dr. Fletcher tried to get his attention, and like a sleepwalker coming to consciousness, Zelig began to respond. He finally waved back and caused a great disturbance as his happy reunion with Eudora interrupted Hitler’s speech.

 

Eudora and Leonard were forced to flee as quickly as possible and ended up driving to an airfield, where Dr. Fletcher (who’d been taught to fly by her aviatrix sister) commandeered a biplane and took off with Zelig in back. They were soon pursued by a squad of German military biplanes, and Dr. Fletcher had to struggle with the controls while evading the Germans. But Zelig saw Eudora’s attempts to fly the plane and suddenly took the controls, and began flying with professional skill. They flew all the way back to America, Zelig inadvertently setting a record for the longest Trans-Atlantic Flight while upside down.

 

This heroic feat flipped Zelig’s public image in America, and he returned to New York with a ticker-tape parade and a presidential pardon for the crimes he’d committed under his other personalities. After working out a tangle of legal messes, Dr. Fletcher and Zelig were finally free to wed, and they did so in a quiet ceremony at Fletcher’s estate. After this, Dr. Fletcher continued her successful psychiatric career, while Zelig delivered lectures about his life experiences. Over time, his episodes of multiple personality grew less and less intense and eventually ended altogether.

 

On his deathbed, Zelig told his doctors that he’d had a good life and that his only regret was that he’d just started to read Moby Dick and wanted to see how it would end up.

 

 

Personality: Leonard Zelig’s problem was that he didn’t have much of a personality. He unconsciously buried whatever individuality he had in his desperate attempts to adapt. Under Dr. Fletcher’s care he began to assert himself, and while critics thought his tastes and opinions on culture were rather lowbrow, they were at least his own.

 

Quote: “I’d never flown before, and it just shows what you’re capable of when you’re a total psychotic!!â€

 

Powers: Leonard Zelig, “The Human Chameleon,†was famous for his ability to transform into practically anyone in proximity to him. The change would occur over a minute or so, but Zelig would grow facial hair, change skin color, and even subconsciously transform his clothing to match that of the people around him.

Moreover, when dealing with foreigners, he developed at least passing familiarity with their spoken language. While Zelig otherwise didn’t seem to develop advanced levels of skill in imitating the people around him, his in extremis ability to fly the plane indicates that he can develop spontaneous Skill sets depending on the circumstances. In game terms he gets a 10 point Variable Power Pool only to gain Languages and other Skills appropriate to the person imitated.

 

NOTES: Zelig was one of the more ingenious movies of Woody Allen’s later career, in which the filmmaker played the subject of a pseudo-documentary, a man who’d become a “Human Chameleon.†The realism of the film was enhanced by the style, which made the film stock perfectly resemble old movie reels and snapshots from the ‘20s, making it seem as though Allen and the other actors were actually in the old films (most notably in the scene where Zelig is at the Hitler rally). The documentary effect was further enhanced by getting actual scholars like Susan Sontag and Bruno Bettleheim to offer commentary on Zelig’s “life.â€

Given several references to Jews in the movie, Zelig is a fairly obvious metaphor for the attempts of Jewish immigrants to assimilate in early 20th Century America, and in the wake of Woody’s ugly divorce from Mia Farrow (who played Dr. Fletcher) it’s just as obvious a metaphor for Allen’s own attempts to rehabilitate his scandalous image.

In RPG terms, the Zelig character would make a great fit for Pulp HERO or Adventure! campaigns, as a local celebrity whose Weird Talent serves mainly to make him a source of curiosity and public controversy.

 

Appearance: Most of the time, Leonard Zelig looks like Woody Allen (short, thin, balding Jewish guy with glasses). When under one of his spells, Zelig could look like practically any male of his general height, even to the extent of transforming his clothing.

 

[Leonard Zelig created by Woody Allen, Hero System writeup by James Gillen]

[AlHazred]

Re: CHAR: Zelig

 

Nice writeup! Some minor quibbles:

• You can't sell back one point of SPD to go from 2.1 to 2. His characteristics should then be 5 points.
  
• I get a cost of 9 points for the Social Chameleon Power: 49 Active Points/5.5 Limitations = 9.
  
• I get a cost of 13 points for the Behavior Emulation Pool: Control Cost becomes 10 with Advantage/3.5 Limitations = 3, +10 for the Pool.
  
• I think he should perhaps have a PRE of 13. Granted, he sometimes seems easily rattled, but he's also capable of blending in with the crowd pretty well and has the Woody Allen charisma. I go back and forth on it in my mind.
  

[James Gillen]

Re: CHAR: Zelig

 

Nice writeup! Some minor quibbles:

• You can't sell back one point of SPD to go from 2.1 to 2. His characteristics should then be 5 points.
  
• I get a cost of 9 points for the Social Chameleon Power: 49 Active Points/5.5 Limitations = 9.
  
• I get a cost of 13 points for the Behavior Emulation Pool: Control Cost becomes 10 with Advantage/3.5 Limitations = 3, +10 for the Pool.
   
  

 

All that's if you're using HERO Designer.

 

I didn't.

 

But thanks. I was wondering if anybody read this thing.

 

JG

[devlin1]

Re: CHAR: Zelig

 

I read it, and it's awesome. I'm doing the Chameleon as we speak.

 

(I know that sounds dirty, but it's not.)

[mattingly]

Re: CHAR: Zelig

 

One of my PCs in my new Teen Champions game starting tomorrow is based on Zelig. Odd timing...

[AlHazred]

Re: CHAR: Zelig

 

What about giving him a PRE of 13 and Vulnerability: 1-1/2x Effect from Presence Attacks?

[James Gillen]

Re: CHAR: Zelig

 

What about giving him a PRE of 13 and Vulnerability: 1-1/2x Effect from Presence Attacks?

 

Ehh, maybe. I don't like giving Vulnerability to "normal" level characters.

 

JG