Archmage

Archmage
Author	/u/fire209
Civilian name	Blake Lively
Alignment	Hero
Affiliation	None (Devilfish)
PRT Classification	Trump, (Brute, Blaster, Master, Striker, Shaker, Mover), , , , , ,
Born	(1998-06-06) June 6, 1998 Miami, Florida
Status	Active

Public Information

A somewhat low-rated cape from Miami, notably one who has displayed a wide variety of abilities, changing between fights. Known for not being a real parahuman, instead getting parahuman abilities from trumps to 'Play Hero'

Physical Appearance

Archmage out of Costume

A tall, lanky young man with black hair and blue eyes. In-Costume wears a dark blue skintight suit covering most of his body, with padded armor over areas for protection. Costume has several small, silvery stars all over it. Wears a Domino Mask, white in color. Also is wearing a stereotypical wizard's hat covered in silvery stars and a silver moon on the front. Wears a thin cape as well, though the cape can be removed fairly easily with force as to not be caught in anything. Carries a staff with him that he uses, a wooden staff with a titanium core, remaining fairly light but durable. It appears to be a gnarled wizard's staff.

Mentality

A fairly upbeat guy overall, likes to joke around in fights and taunt or mock opponents in a light-hearted way. Enjoys word sparring in fights with foes who do similarly. Doesn't actually believe his abilities are derived from magic but it's a nice PR look and gives him a self-described 'Air of Mystery'. Can come off as somewhat dickish or arrogant to some, and enjoys 'Rising to a challenge' so to say. Generally fairly biased as characters go. Unwilling to submit to authority.

Resources

Wealth Level: 6

Has a small, but nice apartment.

A motorcycle, fairly new.

Equipment

His suit, mostly made out of tear-resistant fabric with armor paneling equivalent to type II armor over most vital areas. Has a cape, but cape is fairly easily removed with magnets as to avoid getting caught in things. Has a sort of uplifted vampire's cowl around the neck, though this is made from titanium with thick padding on the inside to protect his head from impacts. Has a white domino's mask covering his face.

Quarterstaff that appears to be a gnarled wizard's staff, but is made to be generally easy to use in combat. Has a titanium core so it is hard to break.

Carries a small med kit on him for basic injury treatment.

A standard Taser.

A couple pairs of very high-strength handcuffs ordered from online, roughly the equivalent of brute-rated cuffs.

Skills

Basics of high-level business management

Fairly good staff combat skills

Decent hand-to-hand combat

General hero knowledge/experience

Experience with using a multitude of different powers

Power

Trigger Type: Single Natural Trigger.

Archmage can copy ‘Segments’ of powers from other parahumans that he has touched. He can copy one ‘Segment’ per parahuman, but touching them again can let him swap out the copied ‘Segment’ for another ‘Segment’ of the parahuman’s power. There is no special sensation for the other parahuman when copying a segment.

Archmage keeps copied ‘Segments’ permanently, but has a maximum number (25) that he can keep stored up at a single time. Needing to discard and replace one in order to gain a new Segment.

Segments usually come in the form of elements that a cape has but can also represent certain abilities or modifiers Archmage could use. For example, ‘Flight’ would be a possible segment, as would ‘Regeneration’ and ‘Strength’. ‘Seeking’ would also be a potential segment, giving the projectile limited ability to seek out its targets. Generally doesn’t step in the way of vectors. I.E. ‘Sword’ or ‘Wolf Minion’ wouldn’t be a segment.

Archmage has a number of ‘Vectors’ that do not count towards his max number of ‘Segments’ . These ‘Vectors’ are always available to him. There are two kinds of ‘Vector’ available. ‘Instant Vectors’ and ‘Sustained Vectors’.

Archmage can combine a ‘Vector’ with up to # of ‘Segments’ to create a minor power. Archmage has relatively standard across-the-board Manton-protections for these powers, to minimize the chance of accidentally killing himself.

These powers are essentially “one-use” for a typical encounter, taking about 5 minutes (50 ingame rounds) before they can repeat that particular combination of ‘Vector’+’Segments’

When assembling a power, Archmage can decide if it's an ‘Instant’ power, or a ‘Sustained’ power. And can have one of each active at a single time. Sustained powers last up to 5 minutes, but can be canceled before that if desired.

Archmage also has control over the specific kind of manifestation, for example if the ‘Fire’ and ‘Minion’ segment were to be combined, Archmage could make it a fire wolf, hawk, dragon, etc.. They would be all roughly at the same strength, but may vary on what precisely each could do. He also has an amount of control over the manifested effect. This could be things like arcing a shot, or moving the forcefield he created with him or keeping it in place. For instantaneous effects any ‘Path’ or ‘Arc’ or modification or the like needs to be set before it is fired, no swerving it unplanned during flight to hit a target.

Archmage is unable to emulate Tinker or Trump powers, but is still able to copy more “Thematic” ‘Segments’ from Tinkers and Trumps, like they would any other cape. (I.E. could get ‘Plant’ from Colony or ‘Strength’ or ‘Regeneration’ from Galen, but not anything with manipulating powers or making tinker tech)

Powers require a 6 second (1 round) cooldown between the casting of one, and the formation of another.

These powers are relatively Minor, typically about a third as strong as a traditional parahuman power, and are not far off from what you might see in a secondary or tertiary ability from a grab-bag capes.

Vectors & Segments

Vectors:

Projectile: A projectile of some form. Max range of 60 feet. Moves 20mph (Approx 30ft/s). capped at approx strength of low-caliber handgun.

Touch: Power is transmitted via Touch. capped at approx strength of medium-caliber handgun.

Construct: Power forms a construct, like a shield, armor, force-field, or sword. Durability roughly capped at the durability of titanium

AOE: Area of Effect, Max Area of 60 feet. more likely to be a secondary effect of the element than raw force/damage. Comparable to a taser in strength, or like being shoved by a particularly strong man for more physical forces

Self: The power is centered on, or only effects Archmage. Roughly capped at 1 ton lift strength &/or Titanium durability, for effects like that.

Minion: The power creates some form of controllable or leadable minion, either mindless, or with no more intelligence than a dog. Cannot stray more than 100 feet from Archmage. Capped Durability of Concrete, 1/2 ton lift strength, Heavy-weight boxer striking force. Special attacks (fire breath, etc.) comparable to heavy-weight boxer punch.

LOS: The power is centered on a space within Line of sight

Segments (Link to Google Sheets list of Segments, previous segments, and segments certain capes have)

Example

Archmage tightens his hat before strolling into the store, to the sight of a villain robbing the store. The villain appeared to be wearing a red spandex suit with the apparent theme of flames. The villain was shouting at the cashier. Archmage says aloud as he enters the store, "Well there, no need to be hotheaded, I'm here to help.

Whirling around, the villain puts both his hands forward and fires a gout of flame at Archmage, who quickly aligns water to the Construct vector, forming a shield of water in front of him. Dismissing it after the gout ended, he dodged to the side to avoid another flame blast, which melted the glass of the window behind him a bit. He pushed together Water and Sticky and sent it down the blast pathway, shooting out a gout of water that arced through the air, splashing into the cape and dousing them thoroughly with water, the water seemingly coating them in a layer.

Backstory

Blake was born to a relatively wealthy family, though his parents weren't born wealthy, and instead had earned their wealth through their business acumen. Ever since he was young, Blake admired heroes and wished desperately to become one. His father vowed to dismiss him of such fantasies, attempting to get him to work in the same business that he worked in, to one day take over. Blake resisted very strongly to these attempts, and reacted by desperately attempting to trigger. Foolishly hearing about how trigger events were caused by dire circumstances, he, in his own childish way at the time, attempted to replicate these with his friends he had made. He was only 10 at the time, but the incident resulted in one of the other boys dying. One did trigger, but it was not Blake. Blake's father managed to allow Blake to escape from consequences for the event.

After that Blake had tried more such attempts in the following couple years, but they were much less dire than the first attempt, and none even came close to remotely succeeding. Eventually giving up, Blake returned to his father. That was when he heard of him- Mephistopheles. A trump cape capable of granting powers temporarily, and also one that believed their abilities were magic. Taking some of the money he had accumulated from his trust fund he left home to go to Mephistopheles, and payed him for the gaining of powers to finally be a hero. It didn't last long. Soon Mephistopheles began asking for more and more money, ridiculous amounts that Blake wouldn't be able to pay. Faced with either having to turn to robbery or losing access to his abilities, Blake left. He searched out more trump capes capable of granting powers, and it worked for a little while, but each eventually began asking more of him in return, things he was either incapable or unwilling to give. He hopped from trump to trump, on occasion finding 2 who he could work with at once, gaining combined abilities. Eventually he made a bit of a name for himself in Miami, as a cape with abilities who would change often, between encounters. He became addicted to the fame of it- of being a hero, all the while living on the trust fund his father had set up for him. On one faithful day, he again encountered the boy who he was involved in their trigger.

______________________________________ The following is a little RP thing describing his trigger event. ______________________________________

Blake stared down Download, clad in the body armor he had brought. He had brought with him a power from another power granter recently- an untested, yet fairly potent ability to project spears of force. He raised his hand, pointed at download, "Give up, Daniel. I'm sorry for what happened to you but you have to stop this, you're hurting people, and I can't let that happen any longer."

Download chuckles, "Oh yeah? I'm hurting people Mr. Hero? WELL WHAT ABOUT YOU?" he snarls viscously, holding the knife to the woman's throat. "I remember what happened that day, it's etched into my mind, nightmares, it comes back. And well, if I feel it, why can't others too? Like Macy here, she has 2 daughters don't you know, and I'd imagine they'd so dearly miss their mommy.." The woman whimpers in his grasp, tears flowing down her face. Download's fingers were drumming along her arm where he had her gripped, each seemingly with a little more force till they were individually causing small bruises. Blake knew that if Daniel even nicked her neck, it would be gouged open beyond recovery.

"That's no excuse to hurt people and you know it. Now put her down, and we an resolve this man on man." He says, keeping a bead on Download with his arm.

Download looks to Blake and grins, and then pushes the woman to the wall of the alley, and presses his knife up to her. "I'm gonna carve her up real nice and you're just gonna stand there and watch." Download takes the dagger and presses it into the woman's shoulder, and she cried out in pain as it dug a gash wider than the dagger would have been able to make.

Seeing Download was more open, Blake pressed down on his power, trying to emit a spear of force to blast Download off the woman, but nothing happened. Looking down at his hand, he shook it slightly, as if trying to get his power to work, but nothing happened.

Seeing this, Download grinned. "So it seems we got the right guy after all. Don't worry, he isn't dead or anything, the guys have just roughed him up until he revoked your power." Download lets go of the woman, and she collapses down the wall a bit, before picking herself up and running away from the 2 foes. Download does not seem to care. Daniel ambles down the alley, wiping his knife against his clothes , and then brandishes it in Blake's direction. "Now you'll know what I felt." He laughs, and then lunges in Blake's direction.

Trigger.

The blackness of space- two figures- no, Blake couldn't focus on that right now. The vision quickly faded from his memory as he danced to the side from the lunge, Daniel somewhat disoriented for some reason. Blake could feel something now. A fundamental concept, force. And multiple paths that it could go. They each felt different, but one felt a bit familiar. A blast of some kind, like what he had before

Daniel picks up the knife and lunges forward again, and Blake, in a panic aligns force to the Projectile vector, and from his outstretched hand blasts a bolt of force, seemingly identical to the one from the ability that hadn't worked. It splashed against Download, knocking him back, groaning, having dropped the knife. Seeing the blade, Blake darted forward and grasped it, accidentally brushing up against Daniel as he did so. A black void, with several of the stars he had felt in his own mind. Somehow he knew he could take one, but only one. He quickly grasped onto one that felt like it might be useful- something that felt like skills.

Download sits up and groans, reaching around for the knife. Feeling it isn't there he glances over to Blake, noticing his outstretched palm. However, Blake had made one mistake... he was too close. Download lunged for Blake's ankle and grabbed it, pulling Blake onto the floor.

As Daniel had lunged, Blake tried to align Force to Blast. It refused to work, and he got the sensation that it would be a period of time before that connection could once again form. Pulled to the ground, He felt Daniel gripping onto him in another location, pushing him down while simultaneously picking himself up. Panicking slightly, Blake aligned Force to Touch, and pushed the resultant to the gripped locations. Suddenly an overwhelming force pushed Download off of Blake, knocking him back down.

Standing up and rushing backwards, Blake looked warily at Download. Suddenly, there was another figure stepping into the alley. They glowed fairly brightly, but Blake could make out the figure of Shield Maiden, a local indie hero. Download glanced around, spotting Shield Maiden and then Blake, and then cursed. He quickly got up and darted down the alley, effectively ending the encounter.

__________________________________________________________ End of little RP thing _____________________________________________________

Afterwards Blake would explain the situation to Shield Maiden, not explaining that he seemed to have a new power. He got the Absorption segment from her, and quickly went to his house. After what had happened today, he knew he wasn't very safe in Miami anymore, and he refused to go sniveling back to his father for protection. He had heard of this town... Devilfish. Apparently it was having a bit of a cape boom. It would be the perfect place to head to.