Lorehunter

My son and I are playing a 4-color hero campaign of which some of you have been quite helpful in putting together. Tonight he encountered 4 thugs chasing a girl down the street. The thugs of course were gaining quickly. He was watching the city from the edge of a 5 story building when he saw this. The character he is running is basically a reskin of Eraserhead from My Hero Academia.
 In his opening maneuver he swings down from the roof using a conveniently placed flagpole and his capture bands and makes a suitable landing. The thugs are unimpressed and proceed to attack. In his 1st phase he uses the capture bands to grab 2 of the thugs and throw them into a nearby wall, at full str. 31 STUN and 6 Body later the two are lying in a heap at the base of the wall after sickening cracks and thuds when they hit. They are not moving and it is obvious that certain limbs are not supposed to be in that position. The other 2 turn and run for their phase. His next phase comes around and this time he only uses half power but rolls really well and again the thugs are left very unconscious and most likely crippled. After checking that the girl is ok he flips across the street (narrowly missing a car) and disappears into the shadows with the sound of sirens approaching. Later the next day the news reports on the newest vigilante "Danger Scarf".
 
He went to bed crowing with laughter at his new nickname. <shakes my head>

My son and I are playing a 4-color hero campaign of which some of you have been quite helpful in putting together. Tonight he encountered 4 thugs chasing a girl down the street. The thugs of course were gaining quickly. He was watching the city from the edge of a 5 story building when he saw this. The character he is running is basically a reskin of Eraserhead from My Hero Academia.
 In his opening maneuver he swings down from the roof using a conveniently placed flagpole and his capture bands and makes a suitable landing. The thugs are unimpressed and proceed to attack. In his 1st phase he uses the capture bands to grab 2 of the thugs and throw them into a nearby wall, at full str. 31 STUN and 6 Body later the two are lying in a heap at the base of the wall after sickening cracks and thuds when they hit. They are not moving and it is obvious that certain limbs are not supposed to be in that position. The other 2 turn and run for their phase. His next phase comes around and this time he only uses half power but rolls really well and again the thugs are left very unconscious and most likely crippled. After checking that the girl is ok he flips across the street (narrowly missing a car) and disappears into the shadows with the sound of sirens approaching. Later the next day the news reports on the newest vigilante "Danger Scarf".
 
He went to bed crowing with laughter at his new nickname. <shakes my head>

I don't blame him!  "Danger Scarf" is an _awesome_ name!
 
 

< singing >
 
Danger Scarf
Danger Scarf
He really makes you
Wanna barf
 
Can he swing
On a scarf
Only when he wants
To make you larf
 
Hey there!
There goes Danger Scarf!

Here's a scarf that leads a life of danger
To everyone he beats, he stays a stangler
With every loop he makes
Another stain he takes
Odds are he'll be laundered on the morrow

My son and I are playing a 4-color hero campaign of which some of you have been quite helpful in putting together. Tonight he encountered 4 thugs chasing a girl down the street. The thugs of course were gaining quickly. He was watching the city from the edge of a 5 story building when he saw this. The character he is running is basically a reskin of Eraserhead from My Hero Academia.
 In his opening maneuver he swings down from the roof using a conveniently placed flagpole and his capture bands and makes a suitable landing. The thugs are unimpressed and proceed to attack. In his 1st phase he uses the capture bands to grab 2 of the thugs and throw them into a nearby wall, at full str. 31 STUN and 6 Body later the two are lying in a heap at the base of the wall after sickening cracks and thuds when they hit. They are not moving and it is obvious that certain limbs are not supposed to be in that position. The other 2 turn and run for their phase. His next phase comes around and this time he only uses half power but rolls really well and again the thugs are left very unconscious and most likely crippled. After checking that the girl is ok he flips across the street (narrowly missing a car) and disappears into the shadows with the sound of sirens approaching. Later the next day the news reports on the newest vigilante "Danger Scarf".
 
He went to bed crowing with laughter at his new nickname. <shakes my head>

My son and I are playing a 4-color hero campaign of which some of you have been quite helpful in putting together. Tonight he encountered 4 thugs chasing a girl down the street. The thugs of course were gaining quickly. He was watching the city from the edge of a 5 story building when he saw this. The character he is running is basically a reskin of Eraserhead from My Hero Academia.
 In his opening maneuver he swings down from the roof using a conveniently placed flagpole and his capture bands and makes a suitable landing. The thugs are unimpressed and proceed to attack. In his 1st phase he uses the capture bands to grab 2 of the thugs and throw them into a nearby wall, at full str. 31 STUN and 6 Body later the two are lying in a heap at the base of the wall after sickening cracks and thuds when they hit. They are not moving and it is obvious that certain limbs are not supposed to be in that position. The other 2 turn and run for their phase. His next phase comes around and this time he only uses half power but rolls really well and again the thugs are left very unconscious and most likely crippled. After checking that the girl is ok he flips across the street (narrowly missing a car) and disappears into the shadows with the sound of sirens approaching. Later the next day the news reports on the newest vigilante "Danger Scarf".
 
He went to bed crowing with laughter at his new nickname. <shakes my head>

Assuming Opal's last one counts this will be number 7 but I'll give Lorehunter the right to call it.
 
Remidi8
 
This member of the Samaritans is a Buddhist and uses the 8 pillars of Buddhism to conduct himself. He is a vegetarian. His goal is the end of suffering and he follows the four noble truths of Buddhism, the truth of suffering, the cause of suffering, the end of suffering and the path that leads to the end of suffering. He will look at the big picture and look to resolve a big issue to end suffering but he can focus on an individual to end their suffering. He works primarily with Saving Grace as she travels to where there is suffering and that is his calling. His martials arts skill is to disarm and disable and take down opponents. He has code against killing. The other benefit of his skill is to let projectiles pass him by.
The one concession to modern life is the codename he uses.

Epiphany
 
Michael’s father was dying. Although he could hear the sirens approaching Michael knew they would never get there in time. Around them lay the bodies of 4 young men, still breathing but unconscious. Nearby knelt 2 young girls quietly crying as they held each other. Above,distant clouds scuttled across the dark night sky. As the sirens grew closer, the sound of the other young men retreating into the night grew more and more distant. A chill wind, barely a whisper, tugged at some peeling handbills stapled to the nearby telephone pole with its single street light. Michael held his father and asked, “Why?”
 
His father took Michael’s hand in his own and said, “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”
 
With those words Michael was left alone in the world. The police arrived. Paramedics noisily joined them only moments later. They questioned the girls, then they questioned Michael. They learned that Michael’s father had been a Preacher and that they had been working at a local soup kitchen️. After helping clean up and close for the night the two men had started walking back to their small tenement on Skid Row. As they had been walking they had heard the crying of the girls and the laughing of the young men. Michael’s father had not hesitated as he turned toward the scene and walked quickly toward them. He had gotten quite close before the thugs had noticed him. 
 
“Get the f*** outta here before I lose my patience, ese!”
 
His father did not preach in any of the local churches, nor did he preach from a soap box on the corner. No, his father had always followed the adage that actions speak louder than words and that if one wanted to spread the Word one needed to exemplify that by following those Words and showing others the Way. Michael’s father had never “preached” to the masses, never berated them for their sins; he had merely been there for those who needed an ear to listen to them, a shoulder to cry on, or a hand to help lift them back up. 
 
Michael’s father had not even slowed as he raised his arm and with a swift straight blow to the man’s face laid him out flat on the ground. At the time, Michael had thought there had been a passing car or something, because at the moment his father had struck the man there was a brief flash of light followed by a slight smell of ozone and sulphur. The remaining young men were at first stunned by the preacher’s actions. It was less the punch itself, but more the single-minded surety and speed with which it had been carried out. Here was a man that despite being outnumbered 8:1 showed no sign of fear or even concern. In that moment he seemed to grow larger, become “more”. He did not get any bigger like some of those supers that grew to giants when fighting crime but he became, well, just “more” like there was someone else there in the same place and the two entities were occupying the same space. On top of that, Michael could have sworn there was a slight nimbus of golden light surrounding his father's chest and arms as if a light were shining on him.
 
The thugs ignored the girls and closed on Michael’s father. It was dark and things were moving fast so Michael was not sure, but to him it looked like the thugs also changed slightly. They became darker, bulkier and less distinct like they were dissolving into smoke or something equally ridiculous sounding. Michael suddenly could smell rotting meat or something somewhere nearby. Michael had never seen his father fight, never seen him even raise his voice in anger let alone make a violent action of any type. Now he watched, stunned and wide-eyed as his father engaged the 7 remaining men. He could never remember afterwards what exactly happened -- only that in a few short seconds, his father had laid out 3 more of the men before being stabbed. At least, Michael had certainly thought at the time that they had stabbed his father nothing else but a knife could have caused the gaping cuts and slashes.
 
“NO!” he screamed as he ran toward the scene. The other thugs saw Michael charging them and ran. The girls also seemed to shrink back at Michael’s approach seeming to fear him as much as the thugs that had attacked them but were too shocked by all that had happened to actually run. Michael ran to his father’s side and held him. The blood. There was so much blood. How could so much blood come from one person. Michael looked down into the slowly dimming blue eyes of his father and asked, “Why?”
 
His father took Michael’s hand in his own and in a barely audible voice told him, “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”
 
Michael’s world exploded and shattered. In the next moment of time the Universe was born, stars made and died, worlds created and destroyed, life flourished and perished and for one very brief instant Michael understood. “God” was not some great puppeteer pulling all the strings of Creation following the machinations of some Grand Plan. He was a Creator allowing each person the freedom to become the best they could if they so chose. If they found the Path within them to Goodness, and they followed it, not for some reward at the end but because it was the right thing to do, then they would grow, become better, more than what they had been. They would become, in their own way, part of the Divine, they would “return to God.” He now understood the freedom that had been given to humans allowed them to choose whether or not they would succumb to their baser instincts or rise above them. Rise up to help their fellow beings, to improve the world around them, and to work against the constant tide of corruption and evil. Humans could give in to their inner demons and become monsters or they could learn to defeat those monsters and show others how to walk the Path so that they too could fight and defeat the monsters that stalked in the darkness. In that moment he understood all the things his father had done and not done. He realized his father had become “more” than he had been. His heart exploded with pain at his loss and pride in his father. In that moment Michael had an epiphany.
 
The following week an elderly couple were walking home after closing their small corner store for the night. Dark clouds scuttled across the night sky. As they walked a group of young thugs emerged from the shadows. They had not been there a moment before and seemed to take shape from the very darkness itself. From one of the alleys came the smell of rotting meat and garbage.
 
“Hey old man,” said one. “You speak-a-da-Engrish?” The others cackled like hyenas at their leader’s callous joke.
 
The couple hunched in upon themselves in a vain attempt to pass by unnoticed, to escape what they knew was coming. “We don wan annee truble,” the old man said in broken English.
 
“Well maybe trouble wants you,” the thug sneered. As he advanced, the shadows seemed to grow thicker around him, obscuring his face. His outline seemed to become less rigid, more amorphous. The couple cowered in terror at whatever they saw approaching them.
 
A sound. Feet moving swiftly but with so little noise it seemed like the sound wind might make if it could run. Like each footfall was the gentlest of kisses to the hard earth. The earth barely having time to register the contact before their secret lover had fled, only to alight a fraction of a second later in a new spot further along. Whoever it was, they were quickly closing the distance between themselves and the shadowy figures. A figure passed beneath a single streetlight and the glow of the light appeared to cling to them even as they left the lamp behind. As tho the light wanted more than anything to be with them. Even if for only a moment. Now, like a glowing meteor it crashed amidst the villainous thugs and with each blow it rained down upon them, starbursts of light invaded the depths of the shadows. The shadowy figures of the thugs tried to strike back but their fists and “knives” struck the nimbus of light surrounding the stranger and were rejected as if they were unworthy to be in the light.
 
As quickly as it had started, it was over. The shadows that had seemed to cling to the young men drew back and dispersed out into the night leaving their bodies on the ground. The stranger turned to the elderly couple and inquired if they were ok. They said they were and thanked their savior. He simply said they were welcome and turned to leave. As he walked away they asked, “Why?”
 
He called back over his shoulder as he passed under the single street light, “Evil wins when good men do nothing.”

Another reason not having the skill levels added to the power is that you can only use a skill level for one thing at a time.  So if you have a skill level with 3 defined skills you can only use it for one thing.  For example let’s say you have a skill level with acting, disguise and mimicry.  If you use the skill level for disguise it is not available to be used for the other two.   The other two skill can often be used as complementary skills, but the roll for them would not be able to use the skill levels for the complementary roll. 

As a player, I have a powerful psychlim that requires my characters to be silly somehow, though that often is limited to the origin story or perhaps the character psychlims or other details.  Too many GMs disapprove of satirical content that they didn't create.
 
As an example, I blundered across the below as an eight-year-old piece of character origin story for a superheroic power level brick who was an orangutan brought to human intelligence and super-powers magically.
========================
In 1967, a mad Borneo witch doctor, incensed at the deforestation and damage to the deep jungles of the island, made a great spell dedicated to Pukpuk, Mighty Forest Spirit, calling on him to send a great warrior to defeat the hated invaders who were cutting down the forests.  A bewildered young orangutan found himself suddenly bigger, stronger, smarter than ever before, and possessed of a terrible rage against humans and their tree-cutting.  He ignored the crazy, smelly old coot who capered around him, and vanished into the forest.  Possessed of superhuman strength, human-level intelligence coupled with the wild ape's senses, and a supernatural ability to hit targets with thrown objects (and sometimes very large thrown objects), he was steered by the forest spirit's anger to attack by night those places where engines growled by day.
 
(Explanation: In the character build was campaign-limit STR, and campaign-limit CSLs for thrown improvised weapons, in direct imitation of Mr. Incredible's abilities in the first Incredibles movie.)
 
For two years he busted up logging operations and mining camps on Borneo, killing a few loggers, more through collateral damage than intent.  (The sound of a chainsaw sends him into a berserk rage.)  He destroyed all the equipment: trucks, loaders, bulldozers, generators, compressors, and especially chainsaws and sawmills.  He had no name and never surfaced into human society, unknowingly leaving a variety of political and ecoterrorist groups to claim credit for his activities.  One of these called itself Orah, after a striking lumber worker killed by a company goon squad.  Ultimately, that name stuck for the responsible party for all the unexplained destruction in the northern and northeastern parts of Borneo, even after the original Orah group was infiltrated and arrested en bloc by the police.  Though brutal and random, his activities did make a dozen timber companies go under and forced five mining operations to shut down entirely, and Orah was hunted desperately by both governmental and international authorities.  Of course, they were hunting for a human operation, and never looked for a super-orangutan.
 
One day the orang encountered a young white man in the jungle, as the latter relaxed ape-style on a leaf-bed in the crotch of a large tree.  The human had no power tools, and the orang followed him stealthily for a day or two as the man took pictures, wrote notes, and (but for clothes and large amounts of mosquito repellent) lived unobtrusively in the forest.
 
On the third day the human saw him and stared, then turned away and started eating: correct orang etiquette for an encounter with a stranger.  The orang joined him, and both were astonished when the ape understood the human's speech.  Young Jim Dirtbag (the human) had been on the Malaysian side of the border as something of a Maoist sympathizer when violent riots and government reaction made everyone leave town or go underground.  The orangutan described what he'd been doing, destroying exploitation activities in the jungle.
 
"You're Orah!" exclaimed the human.  "For that you get a beer."
 
"What?" replied the orang, utterly without comprehension.
 
Dirtbag explained that "Orah" was getting all the credit (or blame) for the destruction in the jungle, and the orang accepted the label with indifference.  In long talks, the young, foolish, and rather left-leaning young American told him that to really make progress against the damage to the forest he had to hit the rich men in the cities, the capitalists, for whose profit all the destruction was done.  Now, in Borneo he could destroy the local bosses in the city, but to really halt it all, he'd have to come to America and destroy the fat cats of Wall Street.
 
The organtuan also learned that he really liked this liquid stuff the human called "beer".
 
A few weeks later, the orangutan went into the city of Samarinda in early evening, and demolished a corporate office building, killing a dozen office workers, including the company president and several other officers.  It was spectacular, as Orah got away, leaving the authorities to puzzle over a cement-and-brick building knocked down without the use of explosives or power equipment, other than the sixteen-ton bulldozer that had been launched from the street so that it crashed through the second-story wall, tumbled through the room where the company officers' meeting was taking place, through the floor, and collapsed the structure around it as it came to rest on its side at ground level.  That the perpetrator also broke into a store and made off with two full beer kegs was a minor tweak on the mystery.
 
Jim Dirtbag's money ran out and he departed for the States, never spilling the beans on Orah the Orangutan.  Finishing a degree with a double major in wildlife management and agriculture at WSU, he got a job as a game warden in southeastern Washington, supplementing the low warden's pay by growing pot outside a shanty he had in the Blue Mountains and selling it to college students in Pullman.  He found himself living a low but satisfactory lifestyle, writing up poachers and illegal loggers, accepting bribes from people he caught with a couple too many trout in their cooler, and writing incoherent leftist tracts while stoned that he subsequently used to light his fireplace in the winter.
 
Orah never forgot the strange man and his words about coming to America, and in late 1971 he stole aboard a tramp steamer, ate coconuts out of a container for ten days, and jumped ship at the mouth of the Columbia River.  Swimming ashore he headed into the Cascades in southern Washington, where he came upon a recently dead human hanging from some shredded cloth in a tree, a single big bag under the swinging corpse.
 
(Explanatory comment: The corpse is D. B. Cooper, and the bag of money is the ransom he collected during his skyjacking.  This was inserted into the character background so Orah the Orangutan had upwards of $100,000 in cash at the time the campaign started.)
 
The bag had money (that much he recognized, Jim Dirtbag having showed him some and expounded on its evils), and he pulled down the body and carried it and the money for three days as he continued moving eastward through the mountains.  Where the trees started running out -- never in his worst nightmares had he imagined a landscape that went for miles of apparently treeless hills -- he buried the corpse under several tons of loose rock at the base of a cliff, and set off over the grassy, arid, cold landscape.
 
He found he had to break into buildings for food, since he recognized nothing edible standing out in December in Washington east of the Cascades, and left a trail of petty burglaries behind as he made his way across the Yakama Reservation, crossed the Columbia north of the Wallula Gap, passed north of Walla Walla, and ascended into the snowy forest of the Blue Mountains southeast of Dayton, Washington.  Bitterly cold, miserably wondering why he had come to this unimaginable snowy desolation, he broke into a dilapidated cabin above the Tucannon River on Christmas Eve, 1971, where he and Jim Dirtbag were utterly astonished to renew their acquaintance.
 

Admirers of that certain group of idiots would like to deny the particular antics indirectly referenced by the pun, so that's a tad ironic.
 
And the oblique reference to Poison Ivy was lost, too.   You could have hit that one harder and just swapped it around to Caustic Holly, and give her an acerbic wit, as well as acid powers.   Or, just too on the nose, Toxic Holly.
 
(the more I think about it, the more I like the concept)

I was telling someone about the thread, and finally said the name out loud.  lol  

Holly Caustic
 
As a child Holly was always admonished to be a "good girl", to obey her elders, follow the rules, etc. When she was in high school she was raped. The boys responsible were never punished as "boys will be boys" and "she obviously was asking for it." Her parents were so disappointed. How could she have let this happen. They were embarrassed and ashamed of her. Holly had gotten pregnant and 7 months later had a miscarriage. She was alone when it happened, her father at work at his prestigious job in the city and her mother at the country club. Looking at the still-born baby, knowing this was yet another life that those boys had destroyed, knowing that the "men" in power would never do anything about it, Holly felt something deep inside her break. Something was released at that moment, something that coiled and twisted as it grew within her. She could feel the house plants around her, the grass of the lawn outside, the trees along the street. She felt the life all around her and then she felt the "death" brought about by the concrete and artificial constructs of the Man to show his status and power over Gaea the Earth Mother. The suburbs where the women and children were kept to be displayed for the prestige of the Men that controlled them and owned them. Along with the expanding sense of Gaea's life force around her Holly felt the bile of her anger and hatred rising as well. The two forces became mixed within her. She found she could influence the plants around her to move as she wished. Additionally she could cause them to seep out the hatred and anger she held within her in the form of a caustic sap able to eat through almost any "Man-Made" material. That day a new woman emerge from the destroyed and overgrown building that had been the house she grew up in, that day Holly Caustic was release upon the world of Man and woe to those who opposed her.

Epiphany
 
Michael’s father was dying. Although he could hear the sirens approaching Michael knew they would never get there in time. Around them lay the bodies of 4 young men, still breathing but unconscious. Nearby knelt 2 young girls quietly crying as they held each other. Above,distant clouds scuttled across the dark night sky. As the sirens grew closer, the sound of the other young men retreating into the night grew more and more distant. A chill wind, barely a whisper, tugged at some peeling handbills stapled to the nearby telephone pole with its single street light. Michael held his father and asked, “Why?”
 
His father took Michael’s hand in his own and said, “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”
 
With those words Michael was left alone in the world. The police arrived. Paramedics noisily joined them only moments later. They questioned the girls, then they questioned Michael. They learned that Michael’s father had been a Preacher and that they had been working at a local soup kitchen️. After helping clean up and close for the night the two men had started walking back to their small tenement on Skid Row. As they had been walking they had heard the crying of the girls and the laughing of the young men. Michael’s father had not hesitated as he turned toward the scene and walked quickly toward them. He had gotten quite close before the thugs had noticed him. 
 
“Get the f*** outta here before I lose my patience, ese!”
 
His father did not preach in any of the local churches, nor did he preach from a soap box on the corner. No, his father had always followed the adage that actions speak louder than words and that if one wanted to spread the Word one needed to exemplify that by following those Words and showing others the Way. Michael’s father had never “preached” to the masses, never berated them for their sins; he had merely been there for those who needed an ear to listen to them, a shoulder to cry on, or a hand to help lift them back up. 
 
Michael’s father had not even slowed as he raised his arm and with a swift straight blow to the man’s face laid him out flat on the ground. At the time, Michael had thought there had been a passing car or something, because at the moment his father had struck the man there was a brief flash of light followed by a slight smell of ozone and sulphur. The remaining young men were at first stunned by the preacher’s actions. It was less the punch itself, but more the single-minded surety and speed with which it had been carried out. Here was a man that despite being outnumbered 8:1 showed no sign of fear or even concern. In that moment he seemed to grow larger, become “more”. He did not get any bigger like some of those supers that grew to giants when fighting crime but he became, well, just “more” like there was someone else there in the same place and the two entities were occupying the same space. On top of that, Michael could have sworn there was a slight nimbus of golden light surrounding his father's chest and arms as if a light were shining on him.
 
The thugs ignored the girls and closed on Michael’s father. It was dark and things were moving fast so Michael was not sure, but to him it looked like the thugs also changed slightly. They became darker, bulkier and less distinct like they were dissolving into smoke or something equally ridiculous sounding. Michael suddenly could smell rotting meat or something somewhere nearby. Michael had never seen his father fight, never seen him even raise his voice in anger let alone make a violent action of any type. Now he watched, stunned and wide-eyed as his father engaged the 7 remaining men. He could never remember afterwards what exactly happened -- only that in a few short seconds, his father had laid out 3 more of the men before being stabbed. At least, Michael had certainly thought at the time that they had stabbed his father nothing else but a knife could have caused the gaping cuts and slashes.
 
“NO!” he screamed as he ran toward the scene. The other thugs saw Michael charging them and ran. The girls also seemed to shrink back at Michael’s approach seeming to fear him as much as the thugs that had attacked them but were too shocked by all that had happened to actually run. Michael ran to his father’s side and held him. The blood. There was so much blood. How could so much blood come from one person. Michael looked down into the slowly dimming blue eyes of his father and asked, “Why?”
 
His father took Michael’s hand in his own and in a barely audible voice told him, “Evil triumphs when good men do nothing.”
 
Michael’s world exploded and shattered. In the next moment of time the Universe was born, stars made and died, worlds created and destroyed, life flourished and perished and for one very brief instant Michael understood. “God” was not some great puppeteer pulling all the strings of Creation following the machinations of some Grand Plan. He was a Creator allowing each person the freedom to become the best they could if they so chose. If they found the Path within them to Goodness, and they followed it, not for some reward at the end but because it was the right thing to do, then they would grow, become better, more than what they had been. They would become, in their own way, part of the Divine, they would “return to God.” He now understood the freedom that had been given to humans allowed them to choose whether or not they would succumb to their baser instincts or rise above them. Rise up to help their fellow beings, to improve the world around them, and to work against the constant tide of corruption and evil. Humans could give in to their inner demons and become monsters or they could learn to defeat those monsters and show others how to walk the Path so that they too could fight and defeat the monsters that stalked in the darkness. In that moment he understood all the things his father had done and not done. He realized his father had become “more” than he had been. His heart exploded with pain at his loss and pride in his father. In that moment Michael had an epiphany.
 
The following week an elderly couple were walking home after closing their small corner store for the night. Dark clouds scuttled across the night sky. As they walked a group of young thugs emerged from the shadows. They had not been there a moment before and seemed to take shape from the very darkness itself. From one of the alleys came the smell of rotting meat and garbage.
 
“Hey old man,” said one. “You speak-a-da-Engrish?” The others cackled like hyenas at their leader’s callous joke.
 
The couple hunched in upon themselves in a vain attempt to pass by unnoticed, to escape what they knew was coming. “We don wan annee truble,” the old man said in broken English.
 
“Well maybe trouble wants you,” the thug sneered. As he advanced, the shadows seemed to grow thicker around him, obscuring his face. His outline seemed to become less rigid, more amorphous. The couple cowered in terror at whatever they saw approaching them.
 
A sound. Feet moving swiftly but with so little noise it seemed like the sound wind might make if it could run. Like each footfall was the gentlest of kisses to the hard earth. The earth barely having time to register the contact before their secret lover had fled, only to alight a fraction of a second later in a new spot further along. Whoever it was, they were quickly closing the distance between themselves and the shadowy figures. A figure passed beneath a single streetlight and the glow of the light appeared to cling to them even as they left the lamp behind. As tho the light wanted more than anything to be with them. Even if for only a moment. Now, like a glowing meteor it crashed amidst the villainous thugs and with each blow it rained down upon them, starbursts of light invaded the depths of the shadows. The shadowy figures of the thugs tried to strike back but their fists and “knives” struck the nimbus of light surrounding the stranger and were rejected as if they were unworthy to be in the light.
 
As quickly as it had started, it was over. The shadows that had seemed to cling to the young men drew back and dispersed out into the night leaving their bodies on the ground. The stranger turned to the elderly couple and inquired if they were ok. They said they were and thanked their savior. He simply said they were welcome and turned to leave. As he walked away they asked, “Why?”
 
He called back over his shoulder as he passed under the single street light, “Evil wins when good men do nothing.”

Maximillion Marithain had been tinkering in his lab, working on the new quantum computer that controlled his quantum particle power armor, Wave Form. He felt he was making really good headway with the code when everything went hazy. When his recollections became clear and distinct it was 3 days later, he was in New York instead of Seattle and he was wearing his newest completed power armor. While being questioned by authorities Maxi found he had been part of some big aerial battle over and around New York. He told them he remembered being on a team, he remember there were bad guys to fight but for the life of him he could not remember who had been on his team or who had been among the enemies. He could not even remember how he had gotten across the continent. He did speculate that maybe the new firmware of his armor had caused some kind of quantum fluctuations that may have caused a ripple effect that pulled the various combatants in the recent battle. These fluctuations may have also caused the memory lapses and sensory distortions that so many experienced as the the various quantum waves collapsed to this particular reality. As to why they seem to have centered in New York he could not even speculate.
 
 
And that makes 5. Thinking of a new team theme .......
 
I know it has been done already (twice I think) but I am on a religious kick at the moment so next group in The Good Samaritans. A team of 7 that go about helping the unwashed masses and fallen of humanity find their way back into the light of the Divine. (Not necessarily Christian oriented.)
 

Superheroes are shamans. They adopt a special role, often using a special name, maybe with an animal theme. Their purpose is to protect their communities from supernatural beings. In their mode of dress and behavior, they stand apart from ordinary people.

That's a great way of putting it.  Superheroes exist not to fight crime, but to fight extraordinary dangers.  True, Superman's first villains were all ordinary people and he was just the ultimate geek's wish fulfillment of going around dealing with problems with massive power to back you up.  But in time the concept developed into something less unnerving and troubling, into one you describe above.
 
Superheroes are moral agents of protection fighting evil in a chaotic world.  Their job isn't to avenge or bring justice, their job is to handle what the regular forces cannot, so that the regular forces can then take over.  Modern comic book (and film) writers don't get this: they think its about defending the powerless and bringing social justice, because they think everything is about that.  Superheroes are a special force that a world with superheroes needs because it has monsters erupting from the ground and aliens from space and VIPER agents trying to blow up the statue of liberty. 
 
To a certain extent its about protecting and serving; like Superman stopping a tornado or Green Lantern corking a volcano, the Flash saving people from a flood, etc.  But when it comes to fighting and putting your life on the line, its not about power or control, its about service and dealing with the extraordinary.  Superheroes can do things like fly food to a starving nation and rush a vaccine to a plague around to everyone.  But their combat "warrior elite" level of action is not about the ordinary.
 
For GMs this is a useful tool to understand how to handle writing and running scenarios.  Champions is not like any other RPG because of this. Every other game you're a free agent doing usually self-serving things.  To get treasure, power, advance a cause, gain things and accomplish goals.  Champions is about none of those things.  You don't go home with treasure or a title.  You go home realizing you did good and helped people.
 
Also, that concept helps explain why it is that its rare in comics for the system to be realistically portrayed as broken, corrupt, and lazy as it really is.  Because the system has to work for any of this to be possible.  Spider-Man cannot stop The Green Goblin and turn him over to the police, if the Attorny General is just going to set him free because he was only helping BLM protesters out.  In a world where you cannot trust the system, superheroes have to become vigilantes carrying out justice, because there's none to appeal to or turn criminals over to.
 
That's why movies such as Death Wish and their like became popular, because the system wasn't working and someone had to step up, at least in fiction.  For a Batman character to turn over things to the system when they can handle it again requires the system to work.

There is a scene in one of the Batman story lines where he and dead/alive Robin are talking over a beaten/not dead Joker about the futility of just arresting the criminals only to have them escape/get released instead of killing them and ending it permanently. Batman says that if he ever started down that path he would never be able to stop. He knows he can't become the judge, jury and executioner but he also realizes there is a real need (in his world) for someone with the means and commitment keep the fighting the good fight. He doesn't do it for his justice or his glory. He goes after people the normal system can't, for whatever reason, and then steps back as soon as the system can get a hand on the situation. If the system looses control then he is there again to bring control back to the system. That includes controlling the system when it strays from its own stated ideal. Both Bats and Super follow a code but it is a code others can point to and say "See? Here is what you are supposed to do." And they are able to do this despite their personal feelings while having their personal feelings providing the motivation to take what action is needed. 
In super hero storylines the writer always knows who is who and what the back story is. They know who is in the right and who isn't. Sometimes that is the story, that the character may not know but the writer definitely does. In real life we often don't have the full story. We are not the writer and don't know the full back story so when people in real life start acting like they do it scares us because deep down we can see ourselves as the ones being judged without all the facts.
I find it amusing (cynic that I am) that when, as LL pointed out, the heroes are acting directly at the behest of the government or system it ends up being more unforgiving and tyrannical that when individuals do similar things. I guess this leads back to the Warrior/Soldier argument. One is an individual the other part of a group. One has flexibility, one has regulation and standardization.
 
Ok getting sleepy and feel I am beginning to ramble. Night.

There is a scene in one of the Batman story lines where he and dead/alive Robin are talking over a beaten/not dead Joker about the futility of just arresting the criminals only to have them escape/get released instead of killing them and ending it permanently. Batman says that if he ever started down that path he would never be able to stop. He knows he can't become the judge, jury and executioner but he also realizes there is a real need (in his world) for someone with the means and commitment keep the fighting the good fight. He doesn't do it for his justice or his glory. He goes after people the normal system can't, for whatever reason, and then steps back as soon as the system can get a hand on the situation. If the system looses control then he is there again to bring control back to the system. That includes controlling the system when it strays from its own stated ideal. Both Bats and Super follow a code but it is a code others can point to and say "See? Here is what you are supposed to do." And they are able to do this despite their personal feelings while having their personal feelings providing the motivation to take what action is needed. 
In super hero storylines the writer always knows who is who and what the back story is. They know who is in the right and who isn't. Sometimes that is the story, that the character may not know but the writer definitely does. In real life we often don't have the full story. We are not the writer and don't know the full back story so when people in real life start acting like they do it scares us because deep down we can see ourselves as the ones being judged without all the facts.
I find it amusing (cynic that I am) that when, as LL pointed out, the heroes are acting directly at the behest of the government or system it ends up being more unforgiving and tyrannical that when individuals do similar things. I guess this leads back to the Warrior/Soldier argument. One is an individual the other part of a group. One has flexibility, one has regulation and standardization.
 
Ok getting sleepy and feel I am beginning to ramble. Night.

There is a scene in one of the Batman story lines where he and dead/alive Robin are talking over a beaten/not dead Joker about the futility of just arresting the criminals only to have them escape/get released instead of killing them and ending it permanently. Batman says that if he ever started down that path he would never be able to stop. He knows he can't become the judge, jury and executioner but he also realizes there is a real need (in his world) for someone with the means and commitment keep the fighting the good fight. He doesn't do it for his justice or his glory. He goes after people the normal system can't, for whatever reason, and then steps back as soon as the system can get a hand on the situation. If the system looses control then he is there again to bring control back to the system. That includes controlling the system when it strays from its own stated ideal. Both Bats and Super follow a code but it is a code others can point to and say "See? Here is what you are supposed to do." And they are able to do this despite their personal feelings while having their personal feelings providing the motivation to take what action is needed. 
In super hero storylines the writer always knows who is who and what the back story is. They know who is in the right and who isn't. Sometimes that is the story, that the character may not know but the writer definitely does. In real life we often don't have the full story. We are not the writer and don't know the full back story so when people in real life start acting like they do it scares us because deep down we can see ourselves as the ones being judged without all the facts.
I find it amusing (cynic that I am) that when, as LL pointed out, the heroes are acting directly at the behest of the government or system it ends up being more unforgiving and tyrannical that when individuals do similar things. I guess this leads back to the Warrior/Soldier argument. One is an individual the other part of a group. One has flexibility, one has regulation and standardization.
 
Ok getting sleepy and feel I am beginning to ramble. Night.

Government leaders, most leaders, really, are elites of one sort or another.  They're not literal warrior elites in modern western society, though some may have military experience, but more often political, academic, scientific, media, economic, etc 'elites.'   
 
You can contrast soldier and warrior that way, though I doubt either word has quite so precise a dictionary meaning, I think it's potentially a fair contrast.  But, by the same token Warriors tend to act as individuals, concerned with their own honor, prefer to intimidate enemies, protect allies, and follow a code or at least their own conscience.  Warriors can be good or bad people.   In contrast, soldiers act collectively, follow orders and rules of engagement, efficiently 'reduce' enemy forces, 'interdict' their sources of supply, and accept 'collateral damage' as part of doing business.   Soldiers may be good or bad individuals, but they can't manage to be much better or worse, collectively, than the system they serve.
 
Oh, and in western culture, particularly American culture (yes there is such a thing), jobs /are/ an important identity.
 
It does happen.  In the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, Ilmarinen, a major character, is the supernatural smith who makes the wonderous Sampo.  While we have lots of action movies and tv shows about violent heroes, we also revere inventors, the inventor as hero was a strong theme in American literature from the mid 19th through the late 20th century (it's falling out of vogue, today) and that's arguably a crafter archetype (that many superhero origins fit).  Similarly, modern entertainment celebrates and reveres healers - doctors, surgeons, nurses & first responders.  And, getting back to myth, Penelope's maintenance of Ithaca's independence, in spite of a hoard of bullying suitors who would take her husband's place is an important part of the Odyssey, so there's a hearth-tender, too (oh, and another crafter - Trick of the Tapestry, remember).  (And before you call her obscure, how many boys do you know named 'Odysseus'?   )
 
Ultimately, I think we have superheroes for two pretty good reasons:
 
1) America didn't have a stable of pre-Enlightenment heroes, gods & monsters to draw upon.
2) We need stories that illustrate the importance of individual responsibility, and give examples of heroes who are responsible, in spite of having no one to enforce that responsibility on them.  Spiderman's story spells out 'with great power comes great responsibility' very explicitly, but Superman epitomizes it since he has just sooo much power, he absolutely should be corrupted by it, but instead he's a total boy scout.
 
 
 
 

Snapdragon
 
After spending 20 years in Stronghold's 'Hot Sleep,' this notorious late 70s, WITCH-associate supervillain retired to a commune in the Santa Cruz hills.  Since her pyrokinetic powers can simply set enemies on fire with a snap of her fingers, as well as project bolts or cones of flame, it was hard to tell, at first, who she may have been inflicting damage on.  Once the illusion dropped and  her large wings and humanoid-reptilian features were visible she was identified, and it was clear that she had been fighting on the 'same side' as a demonic entity and the obscure Homeland-security-flunky Firely.  Maybe someone thought 'fire' needed to be a theme?
As soon as the chaos sorted itself out, Snapdragon descended to ground level and surrendered to authorities, her parole was violated but we she got off with just a few more years of probation.  She gave a full account of her experience.  She'd been sunning herself on the upper branches of a giant sequoia (one of the downsides of being 'cold blooded') and had just started her first sun salutation, when she suddenly found herself over New York, under attack along with a 'team' she intuitive new were on her side, somehow.  Still not fully warmed up from the cold morning, she spread her wings on thermals to gain heat and altitude, torching 'enemies' that got too close, then coordinated with her 'teammates' to concentrate fire on one enemy at a time (an old tactic from back in the day).   Once the illusion dropped, and the sense sense of 'sides' faded (which was not immediate, she did realize one 'enemy' was armored once she could see him clearly, and set some of his internal systems on fire), she dived into the wooded areas of central park to escape the conflict.  
She latter regretted not getting to meet Tankhunter, who had been an idol of her's in college, when she was still an antiwar student protestor, before she'd turned radical environmentalist and been exposed to the reptilizing serum that granted her powers while freeing lab animals from a medical research facility.
Like any proper reptile, Snapdragon keeps her naughty bits safely tucked away in a tightly sealed cloaca, and lacks any mammary tissue, instead her chest and abdomen are protected by hard bands of yellow-green osteoderms, the rest of her body is covered by finer, darker green-grey scales, so she goes sans costume without rousing comment.  She does, however, retain the narrow waist and wide hips she had as a mammal, so is still readily perceived by humans as female, similarly her face, though hideous, is still a face, not a dragon-like snout.  She has fully jointed wings, rather than ptagia stretched between spines like Gargoyle, pale grey-green (nearly white) on the underside, and much darker above (a typical pattern for soaring animals).  She literally snaps her fingers to evoke her pyrokinetic powers, probably as a learned limitation to help control them, since pyrokinesis is notoriously dangerous (though for years that fanciful 'gesture' led to the perception she was magical or "half-" mystical dragon) .  Until the Air War it had been years since she'd done anything more than light a campfire or a doobie with them.

Razorwing
The bloody murder named Razorwing is a strange one. He was thought to be a mutant with metallic bird wings with razor sharp feathers and bird talons for hands and feat. He was responsible for the death of various normals during the attack. 
 
He was thought to of been killed during the battle, but his body was never recovered. And he has yet to reveal if he was truly dead or not.
 
 

Testing against the CC Villains is a great idea, Amorkca. They're fairly balanced for a typical starter campaign. But keep in mind that they are written for a standard Supers campaign and not Dark Champions.
 
Lorehunter, you character is not over powered so much as tuned to a concept. As a Dark Champions street level character, he's quite powerful. In a standard Supers campaign, he's actually fine and maybe a little too frail. The reason I suggested breaking your attack into two different ones was to actually make it more powerful. The HA with affects Desolid would have to bought at 6-8d6 to keep it in the 10-12 DC range but it would be your go to attack and the the AVAD Blast would be your nonlethal option. Plus with both attacks being smaller, you'd have points left to run part of your Defenses. As it is you have a really high active point attack that's doesn't do what you seem to want. If your own Power Defense is typical of the things that have it, then it's quite weak.