Colony

Colony
Author	/u/fire209
Civilian name	Benjamin Cruz
Alignment	Hero
Affiliation	Wards (Devilfish)
PRT Classification	Tinker, (Brute, Master), ,
Born	(2004-06-05) June 5, 2004
Status	Active

Public Information

Since he immediately went to the Wards after his trigger there isn’t much public information other than that he is a new member of the team with plant-based gadgets. When interacting with the public he is in general a bit more shy and tends to shy away from argumentative confrontation.

Starting Reputation: 3E

Physical Appearance

Colony out of costume.

Personal: A teenage boy with fairly average looks. More fit recently due to beginning hero outings. Messy brown hair, glasses, Caucasian in appearance. Has an innocent look, more idealistic, but afraid.

Costumed: An Armored costume, had bits have a bit more of a colored wood appearance. Has small pieces of equipment strapped around body. Costume is made from modified wood and plant fibers such as cotton.

Mentality

More timid and scared of confrontation outside of costume, afraid of failing at tasks given to him. In-Costume is a bit the same way, though more focused. Also absentminded while not in costume, a bit of a tendency to drive himself into projects and work on them for long stretches of time.

Resources

Wealth Level: 4

Ward salary + tinker budget

A nice laptop with a minor mobile chemistry set that connects to it.

A small, relatively inexpensive but alright Moped for transport.

“The Colony”: Essentially his megaproject, it is essentially a self-sustained ecosystem maintained by plants. His tinkering is most effective there. It is centered around a central organism, a hybrid plant/fungus that is useful to help integrate and create limited plant furniture/equipment. It can be removed and replanted in a different location, or even recreated if destroyed, but it more or less resets most of his production and leaves his tinkering weaker for a while.

Equipment

(Tinkertech items in comments)

Taser

a couple Zip-Tie cuffs

low-powered UV Laser

Skills

Ward Training:

Passable hand-to-hand combat involving use of tools in CQC and escaping grabs.

Passable athleticism (Running and other such stunts)

Other: Passable knowledge of biology, especially in regards to plant or fungal biology

Good Memory: is more easily able to remember specifics and recall facts

Power

He is a wet tinker with a focus on plants and fungi, as well as technology that interfaces with plants and fungi. He incorporates minor aspects of the Terraform Tinker in that his best work is created in a self-sustained ecosystem, essentially a small megaproject he sustains where most of his gear is created. He also has a bit of a focus on controller aspects, specifically what one would think of as a farm tinker. He can create drones of multiple varieties but usually only small, short-lived ones are used for fear of spreading or loss of control from the PRT.

Almost all of his work is done within “The Colony”. He can work outside it, but it is almost always restricted to modification of some aspects of existing gear or creation of minor gadgets unless he has access to some serious equipment. If the colony is destroyed or has to be relocated, His tinkering ability and the production of some of his gadgets is slower and weaker for a while. More so if it is destroyed rather than simply relocated.

Trigger type: Single, natural. Can second-trigger. Tinker/Master

Tinkertech

Name: Ironwood Protective colony suit mk1 Character: Colony

Appearance: A suit composed of fabric with colors ranging from green to brown. it has hardened wooden panels also colored green and brown, and on occasion black. It has a glass front to protect the face. On a cellular level it is a mixture of slime mold, cotton plant, and hickory tree.

Abilities:

The suit is made of various plant fibers that have been reinforced for extra protection. While not quite on the level of a suit made of spider’s silk, the cloth parts boast roughly similar protection to Kevlar versus small caliber bullets, while the wooden areas boast hardier protection, more akin to a thicker Kevlar or steel capable of taking more punishment. The suit also boasts the ability of minor regeneration. It won’t change much in a fight, but the regeneration ensures the suit need not be repaired too much, with it eventually repairing all but the most severe damage to the suit in a matter of hours. The suit also has minor shapechanging abilities. This allows for it to be quickly removed or put back on as it forms over the user. It can become forms such as a backpack or simply shapechanging off the user into a mound of clothing on the floor. It cannot assume the guise of other worn clothing.

Duration:

The suit is more or less permanent, but the shapechanging and regeneration capabilities require that the suit regularly root into the ground to gather nutrients to fuel those abilities. It can last 2 days and retain use of the abilities, but past one day of not refueling the abilities begin to degrade, taking longer to accomplish. It takes roughly 2-4 hours of “Recarging time” to refuel the suit. This changes based on location, with it being as short as half an hour in the main colony due to areas created for it to root to as long as 8 hours in particularly inhospitable areas.

Name: Puffball Crawler Character: Colony

Appearance: A small, lumpy white sphere inter-spread with purple dots all over its surface when undeployed. When squeezed and thrown on ground it deploys 4 small legs and skitters around. When told, the purple spots expand, revealing holes from which purple spores are expelled with force. On a cellular level they are a combination of various mobile plants (Venus flytraps, etc..), Puffball Mushrooms, and various types of mold which contain spores

Abilities:

These small Puffball Crawlers act as essentially small, targeted, non-lethal grenades with mobile capabilities. They explode into a cloud of spores roughly 10 feet in diameter that can incapacitate a target if inhaled, and prolonged contact of the spores with the skin causes a mild irritating effect. These come with a series of pills that if consumed renders the user immune to the effects of the puffballs for 24 hours, and causes current effects (Such as incapacitation) to end shortly. The balls have a number of modes that can be activated, as follows:

Unactivated: The balls will not explode if they have not been squeezed.

1 squeeze, throw: The puffball will attempt to remain at its current location, clinging to the surface it impacted against. If moved, jostled, or squeezed it will immediately explode into a cloud of spores. If it feels a concentrated UV light on it (Such as from the laser), it will explode.

2 squeeze, throw: The puffball will perform as the previous mode except it will search its surroundings with primitive eyes to detect points of UV light (From the targeting laser, most often). If it detects one, it will head to its location. Usually this will result in it being hit with the UV light and then promptly exploding. Its own movement does not activate the exploding trigger.

3 squeeze, throw: It will immediately explode upon striking an object or surface.

The irritant effect is comparable to that of a mild pepper spray or an itching comparable to itching powder if target is within spores for too long.

Duration: Once created, the Puffball Crawlers survive for 72 hours before dying. They cannot reproduce on their own. Once activated in any form, they will either immediately die upon explosion or survive for roughly 1 hour before expiring and dying without risk of explosion.

The users who are targeted with the fumes can be incapacitated for as short as 1 round (In the cases of things like regenerators with high metabolisms who are still susceptible to the spores) to as long as 2 hours for unfit people who took multiple inhalations of the spores.

The irritant effect dissipates within 1-5 minutes depending on length of contact with cloud.

Example

Colony was out on patrol in the night when he spotted suspicious activity. Multiple figures entering a jewelry store, wearing nondescript masks to conceal their identities. He decided to carefully approach the store, and saw inside that the figures were holding the attendants at gunpoint. He removed a Puffball Crawler about the size of an apple from his hip and carefully opened the door, tossing it in. The critter crawled over to where he was indicating with a UV laser before it released its payload, exploding into a cloud of spores that incapacitated the entire group as well as the attendants. He rushes inside, taking a pill and giving it to the attendants, causing them to awaken quickly. He calls in the police and the robbers are apprehended.

Backstory

Benjamin Cruz was born in Devilfish and has lived there all his life. He lived a fairly average life, until more recently his father died of cancer. After that point he began declining, ignoring his schoolwork and locking himself off.

In the beginning there wasn’t much pressure on him due to his father’s passing but as time went on and his grades began to decline, more and more pressure was put on him, by his grieving mother, by well-put counsellors. Eventually it got to the point where he began trying again but due to how far behind he was it perpetuated a cycle where he continued getting bad grades and he continued to decline due to him having bad grades, causing him to fall even more behind and spiral deeper. Eventually all the pressure got to him and he Triggered. Suddenly thoughts filled his brain. What he was currently studying- Biology, made more sense. He understood plants and fungi and how to use them, use them for good.

He went to the PRT and told them of his newfound abilities and was brought into the Ward program just recently. They discovered his abilities required a base of operations where he would create a self-sustaining plant ecosystem. They were able to create a small greenhouse on the roof of the PRT building where he could set up his small ecosystem to allow him to use his abilities effectively