DShomshak Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 I’ve enjoyed Steve Long’s new Martial Enemies supplements so much they inspired me to take another look at some of the martial artist villains I’ve written up for my own campaigns. Here’s El Rasgador, the Ripper, one of the more vicious residents of the Martial Arts World. (Regarding the reference to “Aran training”: In my new campaign world, the Arans are an alien race that developed incredibly advanced martial arts. Humans have learned and published some of their simpler training techniques for strengthening both body and Qi. Self-training isn’t as reliable or effective as learning from an Aran sifu, but with persistence and a little luck a determined student can develop nigh-superhuman physical and martial arts prowess, producing a wave of martial arts origins — while people who already have great natural talent and a strong Qi push their skills to wuxia extremes. For other settings, Rasgador simply began with unusual natural talent but squandered it turning down his dark and bloody path.) Rasgador Val Char Cost Roll Notes 25 STR 15 14- Lift 800 kg; 5d6 HTH damage [2] 24 DEX 28 14- 25 CON 15 14- 10 INT — 11- PER Roll 11- 8 EGO -2 11- 20 PRE 10 13- PRE Attack: 4d6 8 OCV 25 8 DCV 25 3 OMCV — 3 DMCV — 6 SPD 40 Phases: 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 25 PD 23 Total: 25 PD (5 rPD) 25 ED 23 Total: 25 ED (5 rED) 12 REC 8 50 END 6 14 BODY 4 40 STUN 10 Characteristics Cost: 230 Movement: Running: 24m Swinging: 24m Cost Powers END Martial Arts: Eagle Claw Kung Fu Maneuver OCV DCV Notes 4 Block +2 +2 Block, Abort 5 Defensive Strike +1 +3 5d6/1d6 AP KA Strike 4 Eagle Claw +0 +0 9d6/1½d6 AP KA Crush, Must Follow Grab (13d6 normal/4d6 AP KA with STR and Deadly Blow) 3 Joint Lock/Grab -1 -1 Grab 2 Limbs, 35 STR Hold 3 Legsweep +2 -1 6d6, Target Falls 1 Use Art with Claws 26 Steel Claw Implants: HKA 1d6 (2d6+1 with STR) 0 Armor Piercing (+1/4), Reduced Endurance (0 END; +1/2) 5 Subdermal Ballistic Cloth: Resistant (+1/2) on 5 PD, 5 ED 0 5 Synthetic Eye Lens: Sight Group Flash Defense (5 points) 0 5 Synthetic Eye Lens: UV Perception 0 12 Fleetfoot: Running +12m (total 24m) 2 8 Swingline Bracer: Swinging 24m 2 OIF (-1/2) 5 Another Swingline Bracer Perks 15 Contacts: 3 Narco-Barons, 11- each (Contact has very useful resources, access to major institutions, &/or significant Contacts of his own) 3 Membership: Medellin Cartel Talents 16 Deadly Blow: +8 levels with Kung Fu Only to add damage to Eagle Claw (+4 DC normal damage, +3 DC AP KA damage) Skills 6 +2 with Eagle Claw Kung Fu 4 +2 OCV with Joint Lock/Grab 3 Acrobatics 14- 3 Breakfall 14- 3 Climbing 14- 3 Interrogation 13- 2 KS: Aran Training 11- 2 KS: Kung Fu 11- 2 KS: Latin American Organized Crime 11- 2 KS: Martial World 11- 1 L: English (Basic Conversation; Spanish is native) 1 L: Mandarin (Basic Conversation) 3 Stealth 14- 3 Streetwise 13- Total Powers & Skills Cost: 161 Total Cost: 388 400 Matching Complications (75) 10 Distinctive Features: Metal Claws (Concealable; Noticed and Recognizable) 10 Distinctive Features: Style (Not Concealable, Noticed and Recognizable, Detectable By Large Group) 20 Hunted: Various Governments (Infrequently, More Pow, NCI, Capture/Kill) 10 Negative Reputation: Murderous Disgrace (Infrequently, Extreme) 20 Psychological Complication: Bloodthirsty (Very Common, Strong) 15 Psychological Complication: Gunslinger Mentality (Common, Strong) Total Complications Points: 75 Background/History: Leandro Bardem comes from an upper middle class Mestizo family in Cali, Colombia. His family worked hard to be respectable; Leandro found it stifling. His passions were kung fu and getting in trouble with street kids. Leandro was still a teenager when Aran martial arts teachings reached the Internet, and his dojo. Leandro excelled. He combined his interests by becoming the youngest leg-breaker for a small gang affiliated with the city’s drug cartel. His sifu saw Leandro’s growing brutality and expelled him, but by then Leandro didn’t care. Eager to build his gang reputation, Leandro adopted claw-tipped gloves to make his Eagle Claw attacks deadlier and more intimidating. Then a fight went further than expected and Leandro ripped open a man’s belly. First Leandro threw up. Then he whooped and laughed in wild exultation at his own lethal power. The cartel leaders dubbed him El Rasgador, “The Ripper,” and he graduated to the higher tiers of gang enforcement. Leandro reveled in the violence and the fear he inspired, as well as the women, wealth and drugs the cartel gave him. On the other hand, Leandro found that he faced stiffer competition from other elite enforcers as well as the occasional hero. He was no longer getting better at kung fu, either. So Leandro paid a shady doctor to cyborg him: ballistic cloth under his skin to make him bullet-resistant, artificial lenses in his eyes to shield them from flash/bang grenades, and diamond-coated, case-hardened steel claws on his fingertips. As a living weapon, the Ripper was now ready to kill at any time. Personality/Motivation: Leandro is utterly psychotic. He loves killing up close and personal: The spurt of blood, the stink of guts ripped from a man’s belly, and the shock and horror on the face of a dying victim. El Rasgador believes he can take anything he wants and kill anyone who gets in his way. So far, it’s worked pretty well for him. Leandro particularly wants to fight other skilled martial artists for the glory of killing them. Quote: “I will rip out your guts and show you your heart as you die. Ha!” Powers/Tactics: The Ripper’s claws are exceptionally hard and sharp, and Leandro’s martial arts skill enables him to rip through stronger materials and inflict greater wounds than would seem possible for such small blades. The combination of martial training and subdermal kevlar also make El Rasgador tougher than should be humanly possible. The artificial lenses in his eyes incidentally let him see ultraviolet light. Bracers that shoot grapnel-tipped lines enhance his mobility. Most importantly, though, Leandro is superhumanly strong, fast and agile. Apart from that, his martial arts skill is… not that great. A true master can tell that while Leandro’s Qi is strong, his technique is sloppy and his range of maneuvers is limited. He could have been a great fighter, if he cared more about perfecting his skills than killing people. Getting cyborged also interferes with the natural flow of his Qi and prevents him from ever developing the more refined, mystical aspects of kung fu. El Rasgador begins a fight with Defensive Strikes while he feels out his opponent’s skill… or to toy with a victim by inflicting minor wounds. If an opponent can fight back effectively, Leandro uses Blocks to act first on subsequent Phases, and Legsweeps in hopes of putting his foe on the ground and at a disadvantage. This is to set up his foe for a Joint Lock. Once Leandro his target Grabbed he uses his Eagle Claw maneuver, trying to rip his enemy’s guts out. El Rasgador always fights to kill unless his employer pays him extra to leave someone alive. Campaign Use: If you need a homicidal and utterly vile Mob enforcer for a scenario, El Rasgador can fill the bill. To make the Ripper more powerful, increase his Dexterity and Speed, expand his Skill Levels to All HTH, and add Damage Classes to his Eagle Claw King Fu. (Don’t add maneuvers; the Ripper is supposed to be a one-trick pony.) To make him less powerful, remove his Flash Defense and Skill Levels, and reduce his Deadly Blow bonus damage. El Rasgador Hunts people when his employer pays him to. He might also Hunt another martial artial out of rivalry; he won’t fight fair. Associates, Allies, and Adversaries: The Ripper specificially works for the Medellin Cartel in Colombia, but the cartel rents his services to the Cali Cartel, the Mexican Mafia, and other narco-traffickers. In this way he might turn up far from Colombia and working with other Mob super-enforcers. He has no genuine allies, though — and many people in the Martial Arts World despise him for killing respected, though not superhuman, athletes, fighters and teachers (including his own teacher). It wouldn’t take much for this Negative Reputation to flip into a second Hunted. Appearance: El Rasgador is a young man with bronzed skin, short, spiky black hair and dark brown eyes. He wears tight black vinyl pants and boots, with black enameled bracers on his forearms. Leandro goes shirtless to flaunt his ultra-ripped, Aran-trained physique, just as he makes no effort to hide the half-inch, hooked claws of gleaming steel that replace his fingernails. Rasgador Facts Here are some facts that characters and NPCs might know about El Rasgador if they succeed with an appropriate Skill Roll: K/R: Colombian drug cartels have an enforcer who is called the Ripper because he rips people’s guts out with his bare hands. -1: El Rasgador has metal claws on his fingers. His strength and speed place him at the limit of human athletic potential, or beyond. He’s been active throughout Latin America and occasionally further afield. -2: The Ripper’s name is Leandro Bardem. He practices some form of kung fu and has been surgically altered. Bardem doesn’t just kill for money: He seeks out and kills other martial artists just to show that he can. -4: Leandro Bardem practices Eagle Claw kung fu. His remarkable strength and speed come from Aran training techniques, but his actual skill is not great. ----------- Dean Shomshak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted December 4, 2015 Report Share Posted December 4, 2015 Nice. Very nice. Kind of reminds me of the Weasel from High-Tech Enemies. More comic-style martial artists ought to look at bionic enhancement. It's a fast route to becoming competitive with the real super-level masters. Just FYI, the Medellin and Cali drug cartels were dismantled by the late 1990s. Some drug-smuggling organizations arose in their wake in Colombia, with mixed success; but none have achieved the size, wealth, and power of their predecessors. That was one factor behind the shift in the hub of drug smuggling in the Americas to Mexico in this century. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DShomshak Posted December 5, 2015 Author Report Share Posted December 5, 2015 Just FYI, the Medellin and Cali drug cartels were dismantled by the late 1990s. Some drug-smuggling organizations arose in their wake in Colombia, with mixed success; but none have achieved the size, wealth, and power of their predecessors. That was one factor behind the shift in the hub of drug smuggling in the Americas to Mexico in this century. Really!? I knew they'd been hit hard by the capture of Pablo Escobar and his flamboyant ilk, but I didn't know the cartels had actually disintegrated. Wow. (And thanks for letting me know!) Ah well, Rasgador works as well as the operative of some other Latin American group. From what I've heard, El Salvador's Mara-13 shows his sort of psychotic ultra-violence, but I have the impression it's also rather disorganized. Mexican gangs have the money and look increasingly bloodthirsty and psychotic, so I guess I'll substitute one of those. It's probably best not to name a specific gang, though, because they seem to come and go fairly quickly. (Or invent one.) Dean Shomshak Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted December 5, 2015 Report Share Posted December 5, 2015 This article gives a pretty decent summary of the mutation of Colombian organized crime up until 2013: http://www.insightcrime.org/news-analysis/20-years-after-pablo-the-evolution-of-colombias-drug-trade There should still be plenty of opportunities for work for a Colombian-based assassin, including internationally; just not with the backing of a monolithic criminal syndicate as in the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninja-Bear Posted December 6, 2015 Report Share Posted December 6, 2015 So he can have a Rival- El Muerto Obscuro. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Liaden Posted December 6, 2015 Report Share Posted December 6, 2015 Sure. He fits with El Rasgador's background and the thread theme. Although his name ought to be, "La Muerte Obscuro," "death" being a feminine noun in Spanish. (Not the biggest glitch in the BBB.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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