The Elemental Four
A team of students working for a Dr Aeculapius Scott on a dig in central Turkey uncovered a concealed temple to the four elements. Separated by an ancient trap, Ariel Frazier found herself falling, only to hover suspended in a circular chamber by buffeting winds that seemed to tear the air out of her very lungs. She found a blue-white crystal floating there in the midst of the winds and clung to it for safety, only to feel her own body seemingly ripped to shreds, to become the howling winds around her. It took hours of drifting in a dreamlike state before she found her way to the others, and witnessed their horrific fates, and it took days of practice and encouragement from Dr Scott before she could pull herself together into human form. Her older brother Kenneth slid down an oil-slicked ramp to find himself in a chamber of flaming oils and resins. He burned alive, beating his burning flesh against the red-hot walls of his prison and howling in agony, until he finally fell back onto the pulsing red jewel in the center of the room. When he awoke, he was the fire, and his mortal form had burned away. His reconstitution was such agony, the feeling of his entire body un-burning from ash into flesh again over excruciating minutes, that he was unconscious for hours, and had to be carried on a makeshift stretcher by his companions. Their surly Italian guide, Marco Ghibretti, found the floor collapsing beneath him, and when he seemed just about to pull himself to safety, the ceiling also collapsed, crushing him beneath tons of unforgiving stone. But in the depths of the pit, his hand closed on a jagged piece of onyx that pulsed with a golden-green fire, and he found his flesh drying out and stiffening, petrifying into solid stone. Soon he was strong enough to force his way free from the imprisoning stone, and was the only one of the four to remain recognizably humanoid, albeit as an ambulatory stone effigy of himself. Dr Scott found the chamber he was trapped in filling with water, and a metal grate closed down on him from above, forcing him down to the floor, even as the water rose. As he felt his lungs give way, a ball of what felt like ice found it’s way into his desperately clutching fingers, and he turned to see it pulsing with an azure light that seemed to illuminate the water around him. Sure that he was hallucinating from the lack of oxygen, he dreamed of strange forces and alien symbols, of powerful elemental angels and demons, working together to build the earth, and to tear it down. The room opened, and the water flowed out to drain away into holes in the nearby floor, and Dr Scott awoke from his vision in the center of the central pool, oddly unable to move or even breathe, until he saw the now-stone figure of their guide lumbering through the corridor to him, and realized that he had somehow become the water that Marco was now splashing on his arms, trying to ‘wash the rock off.’ With focus and concentration, he caused himself to revert, first to a humanoid figure of ice, then finally into his human form. Ariel found them a few moments later, and they set off in search for her brother, whom she described as having burned to death, but whom Dr Scott now realized was most likely embodied within the very fire that she had seen consume her brother.
Marco never learned to transform back from his rocky state, but the others quickly mastered their transformations (none so completely as the iron-willed Dr Scott), and decided to become a team of heroes, using their newfound abilities for fame and glory.
The Elemental Four really tried to be super-heroes, under the names Tsunami, Ariel, Flashfire and Gibraltar, but a series of horrific blunders, excessive property damage and injury to hostages left them subject to reckless endangerment suits. An investigation turned up improprieties in their personal lives, particularly in the case of Gibraltar, whose mob connections were uncovered, and Tsunami, who was found to have falsified some financial data during his research days. (Pyre’s youthful indiscretions had been sealed away under a gag order during his army days.)
The team gave up on the ‘hero’ schtick, since they were clearly not cut out for it. Their popularity at an all-time low, they took the easy way out and just became criminals instead, changing their names to Undertow, Miasma, Pyre and Gravestone. (Miasma was called Carrion Wind for a while, but changed it to Miasma recently.)
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[All characters have +5 to base Attack and Defense. All use the 1:1 Skill cost ratio, save for Dr Scott / Undertow, who has a special Feat allowing him to use a 2:1 ratio.]
“Now really, that is no way to speak young lady! I’m afraid that I shall not accede to your request.”
Undertow can assume the forms of ice, water or vapor (or scalding steam) of equal mass to his own size. In icy form, his touch chills, in water form, he tends to bowl people over, and as a cloud of steam, he expands to up to 216 times his normal volume, can move through the air and burn and suffocate the unwary. He often changes forms many times in the course of a combat, to disorient his opponents, change tactical viewpoints and exploit observed weaknesses. He often targets items, to freeze or soak, in an attempt to take advantages away from foes. Undertow has crafted a special form of cloth, woven from his allies own hair (vat-synthesized from clippings) and ingeniously tailored and dyed, that is immune to their respective powers (or, more accurately, reforms when they resume fleshly form). Gravestone has a half-dozen suits made of his own hair (so, yes, he wears a hair-shirt), as hard as steel wire, and not useful as clothing for anyone who lacks his freakish strength, as it remains as durable as ever. The doctor also managed to craft a leather-substitute for Gravestone’s shoes, belt and gloves, from cultures force-grown from his own rocky hide, but the others haven’t gone that far and tend to wear ‘cloth’ slippers or ‘denim’ sneakers of the treated hair (or go barefoot, in Miasma’s case)…
Dr Aesculapius Scott (everyone calls him Dr Scott, except for Gravestone, who calls him ‘Alfred’ or 'Doc' and Ariel, who, in private, calls him ‘lappy’) is balding (he shaves what shreds of hair he has left, rather than go through the pretense that what is left matters), wears tiny bifocal spectacles (that he takes off to avoid their loss when he changes form, and needed only to read in the beginning. He was working on ‘growing’ a pair from bone and retinal scrapings, but decided that Lasik was much less effort. His current ‘glasses’ are pure affectation). He is 5 ft., 7, and somewhat heavy-set, resulting in his preferring to assume other forms in combat, as he is not terribly imposing in his human form. Due to his shortage of hair, his outfits are usually brief, shorts, t-shirts and vests, with slipper-like footwear. He would prefer flowing lab coats and full suits, but hasn’t managed to vat-grow enough hair from his thin supply.
‘Dr’ Scott is an actual professor, not of history, archaeology or the occult, but of biochemistry and genetics, having been researching the new excavation not for lost artifacts or cultural information, but for physical residues of the living individuals of that time, to help establish certain genomic timetables for various changes in the domesticated agricultural crops and work-animals (and, incidentally, humanity itself). His team was not gathering pot-sherds or tracing inscriptions, but was searching for fragments of bone, crop seeds and items of fur and cloth from animals and plants of the time, to be broken down and genetically compared to modern species of cotton, flax, wool, etc. to track the genetic modifications engendered by primitive man upon his environment.
Dr Scott has a vary limited palette of unique characteristics, having always been obsessed with his work, so much so that he barely noticed when his wife left him, years back. He ended up putting up a cot in his laboratory at the university that employed him, as he was prone to falling asleep in situ. Colleagues and students took it upon themselves to bring him meals, and his house would have fallen into disrepair, had one of his students, Ariel Frazier, not become his live-in girlfriend, and taken to dragging him home at night. He’s still somewhat perplexed as to how that all came about, and became less amused when her lout of a brother began showing up with his equally loutish friends... Still, as he began to associate with his companions, he seemed to pick up traits and characteristics, which an observant viewer will note are cribbed directly from his team-mates. His seeming fondness for microbrews, expensive cigars and quart-a-day coffee habit may have made him have more in common with his allies, but he still seems to lack individual quirks, and at the end of the day, he sometimes wonders if that is all that he is, a shallow reflection of his allies lives and personalities, lacking the strength of will to forge one of his own. (Ironically, he is extremely strong-willed, and yet eerily adaptive.)
Undertow: PL 11; Init +2 (+2 Dex); Defense 17 (+5 base, +2 Dex); Spd 30 ft. (Fly 50 ft. in Gaseous Form); Atk +5 melee (+5S punch. +15S in Ice Form); SV Dmg +2 (+12 in Liquid Form), Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +2; Str 11, Dex 15, Con 14, Int 17, Wis 14, Cha 13. (25 pp, 24 pp)
Skills: Science (Genetics) +5/9, Science (Biology) +10/14, Science (Biochemistry) +2/6, Science (Zoology) +5/9, Science (Botany) +5/9, Science (Archaeology) +1/5, Knowledge (History) +4/8, Knowledge (Occult) +1/5, Computers +2/6, Diplomacy +3/4, Forgery +2/6, Language (German), Medicine +7/11, Search +3/7, Survival +4/6, Swim +5/5 -30 pp
Feats: Iron Will, Indomitable Will, Detect (Water), Extraordinary Training * - 8 pp
Powers:
Super-Intelligence +1 (Source: Training) - 2 pp
Alternate Form - Liquid +10 (Power Stunts: Amphibious, Underwater Combat, Super-Swimming, Darkvision, Extra Forms; Gaseous and Solid, (Water, Steam and Ice)) - 62 pp
Energy Field (Extra: Ghost Touch, Area, Flaw: Only in Gaseous (Heat damage) or Solid (Cold damage) forms, Area only in Gaseous form) +5 - 15 pp
Regeneration +5 (Extra: Invisibility, Flaw: Only in Liquid form, Flaw: Only when immersed in water) - 5 pp
Immunities: Aging, Critical Hits, Disease, Exhaustion, Pressure, Sonic, Starvation, Suffocation, Heat, Cold (free in Alt form)
Gadgets +1 (represents an array of extremely limited mystical talismans, fetishes and faences stolen from other sites, often with no appreciable power of their own, but able to be invoked with the proper rituals) - 1 pp
Equipment:
172 pp
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“Ooh, shiny!”
Miasma can turn into a gust of wind, in which form she can move at hurricane-like speed and force, being all but unseen to the naked eye, save for the debris she kicks up when moving. She is stronger when her ‘wind’ targets a single person, but she is capable of dissipating herself to cover a huge area, becoming completely undetectable, but aware of everything happening ‘within her,’ allowing her to search a large area quickly, by simply expanding her volume and ‘being everywhere, all at once.’ Even in human form, she tends to be ‘wispy’ and flutters about getting her nose into everything. If she isn’t assigned a task, she will begin doing something, being impatient with silence or stillness, leading her husband to make a special point of giving her a specific task, so that he doesn’t have to deal with her doing something rash… Her real name is Ariel Frazier, and she is annoyed that the team voted to no longer use their ‘hero’ names, since she liked the idea of being called Ariel.
In her normal form, she is a freckled redhead with blue eyes, slightly heavier than the current standards of beauty, but still attractive in an earthier sort of way, not at all overweight. She is endlessly active, in either form, and her ‘child-bearing hips’ are surely not the result of a sedentary life, as she exhausts even the most athletic of her acquaintances with her go-go-go lifestyle. (She once noted that she drinks eight cups of coffee a day, preferring the higher-octane blends like espresso…) When she transforms, all around her see her seem to expand for a second, and grow pale, as if she is being stretched thin, and suddenly she just seems to burst in a startling rush of warm, damp air. (She is not truly ‘damp,’ that is simply how nerve endings tend to perceive her denser-than-normal gaseous form.) When she sits still in one area, she tends to cool down to near the surrounding air temperature, but even then, there is a measurable increase in temperature, and small items tend to blow around as she moves. Voltage meters also pick up a slight increase in ambient electricity, within her dispersed mass.
Miasma: PL 10; Init +3 (+3 Dex); Defense 18 (+5 base, +3 Dex); Spd 30 ft. (Fly 50 ft.); Atk +5 melee (+10Knockback winds); SV Dmg +2, Fort +2, Ref +3, Will +1; Str 10, Dex 17, Con 14, Int 13, Wis 13, Cha 13. (25 pp, 21 pp)
Skills: Acrobatics +2/5, Drive +2/5, Computers +1/2, Handle Animal +3/4, Listen +4/5, Survival +1/2, Search +3/4, Move Silently +3/6, Science (Archaeology) +2/3, Science (Biology) +4/5 - 25 pp
Feats: Scent, Aerial Combat, Move-by Attack, Blindsight, Trance - 10 pp
Powers: Alternate Form +10 (Gaseous, Extras: Ghost Touch, Knockback,* Partial Extras: Invisibility +5, Super-Senses +5, Power Stunts: Super-Flight, Whirlwind Attack) - 84 pp
Immunities: Aging, Critical Hits, Disease, Exhaustion, Poison, Pressure, Starvation, Suffocation, Heat, Cold (free with Alt form)
Equipment:
Weakness: Transformation (when injured or startled, reverts to gaseous form involuntarily. Must expend a Villain point, or become fatigued, to ‘pull herself together’ and resume human form.) - 10 pp
154 pp
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“Ok, that’s f*ing it! It’s your funeral, dude…”
Pyre can immolate (an intensely painful experience, that he has learned to endure) and his flesh burns away entirely, leaving only a vaguely humanoid pillar of fire. While he can fly, he prefers to take advantage of his lighter than air state and leap hundreds of feet in a flash. He generates the intensity of flame necessary to burn flesh to ash in seconds, several thousands of degrees, and also enough to melt most metals in seconds. He tends to pass out when he reforms, so he is mercifully unaware of his flesh and bones reforming. Brother of Ariel / Miasma, also an Irish redhead, but unlike her spends most of his time sitting around and playing video games. He is still young enough that he hasn’t gotten overweight from his regimen of junk food and inactivity, and he’s tall and beefy, significantly more so than Gravestone. Kenneth Frazier is alternatively sullen, morose and foul-tempered, treating his sister one moment with dismissive contempt, and yet becoming violent if anyone else dares to treat her ‘disrespectfully.’
Like his sister, Kenneth is a freckled red-head, and tends to be a tad heavier than normal, although in his case, the extra weight is carried on his shoulders. He is four years older than his sister, but spent a few years in the army as an MP (and a few more in the stockade, for reasons that are still sealed), and so started his college career at about the same time as his younger sister. Upon first sight of his muscled frame, all six feet four inches of it (standing a full foot taller than his sister), one could easily think that he had spent his youth scoring horse steroids and pumping iron. One would not be incorrect in that assumption, and he has the temper that is associated with that…
Unlike his sister, Kenneth’s drink of choice is beer. Lots and lots of beer, and when he can get his hands on it, expensive imported Irish microbrews. He occasionally smokes, but is one of those odd few that off-handedly quits for months at a time, and then starts up again, with no apparent rhyme or reason.
Pyre: PL 10; Init +2 (+2 Dex); Defense 17 (+5 base, +2 Dex); Spd 30 ft. (Leap 25 ft. or Super-Leap 800 ft.); Atk +5 melee (+3S punch, +10L fiery punch); SV Dmg +2, Fort +2, Ref +2, Will +1; Str 17, Dex 14, Con 15, Int 12, Wis 12, Cha 11. (25 pp, 21 pp)
Skills: Drive +3/5, Pilot +4/6, Swim +2/5, Climb +8/11, Jumping +3/6, Survival +3/4, Science (Biology) +2/3, Computers +1/2, Craft (Carpentry) +8/9, Intimidate +2/5 - 36 pp
Feats: All-Out Attack, Move-by Attack, Surprise Strike, Power Attack, Takedown Attack, Rapid Takedown, Darkvision (Area Effect x4 (his fiery body sheds light that even burns through Obscuring fogs or mystical darkness within a 20 ft radius)) - 18 pp
Powers: Alternate Form +10 (Energy: Fiery Plasma, Incorp to all but Cold; Flight, Energy Field, Partial Extra: Leaping +5 (Power-Stunt: Super-Leaping), 6/5 pp / level) - 55 pp
Immunities: Aging, Critical Hits, Disease, Exhaustion, Poison, Pressure, Radiation, Heat, Cold, Light (free with Alt form)
Equipment:
Weakness: Transformation (when he loses temper, human form is Fatigued whenever he reforms) -10 pp
150 pp
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“Laugh all ya want, I’ll be the one standin’ over yer coffin, kid.”
Gravestone's body has transformed into solid granite. Isn’t any larger or more imposing, tends to wear shades, a fedora and a nice suit that appears to be Armani, but is a special creation of Undertow, woven from his own wire-hard inflexible hair (which he wears slicked back, and which doesn’t move for anything short of C4, which may break off a strand). It isn’t until he takes his shades off and puts them in his pockets, doffing his trendy fingerless gloves, that one can see his solid stone hide, and the beatdown commences with his trademark, ‘It’s clobberin’ time!’ He puts on a fairly sophisticated air, but is little more than a working-class ‘made man’ hired as muscle by Professor Scott. Surprisingly, he is not as tall as Pyre, merely 5’ 10”, nor as impressively built, being slim and somewhat wiry, but his compact form is amazingly powerful, and his fists hit like sledgehammers. Marco Ghibretti lived in Italy for a time, but was born in the United States, and is less comfortable around ‘real’ Italians than he’d thought he would be, preferring American sports, beer and women, after all. After living in Rome for a year, he came to the heretical conclusion that his native people are a little too ‘European’ for his tastes (when he wants to start a fight, he says that they’re ‘too French’), and the good-old boys of his New York childhood seemed a lot more like what he considers to be ‘real men’…
He is clever enough (smarter indeed than his team-mates generally realize) to have noticed that his team-mates transformations seem to be linked to their emotional states. He has always been a stoic and calm figure, even when he was picking fights as a youth, and nothing has ever really gotten him worked up emotionally, leading him to the eventual conclusion that he might have suffered some sort of neurochemical deficiency, one that makes him far less likely to lose his temper, or truly care about anything. As a result, he thinks that his inability to transform back to his human form is connected to his borderline sociopathic lack of feeling. As with everything else in his life, this doesn’t bother him enough to do anything about it…
His stone hide is smooth, like that of a polished marble statue, and his hair is solid and motionless, slicked back. He sports no facial hair, and whenever tiny spikes of inflexible stony stubble appear on his cheeks, often at the end of the day, he rubs his hand over them and breaks them off (his cheeks often appear darker, due to this ongoing battle with five-o-clock shadow). His skin appears an uneven grey-white, and looking closely at areas like his wrists, one can see the veins and arteries beneath the skin, as faint blue and pink lines. He is generally cool to the touch, particularly when he has been stationary for a time, but his ‘skin’ warms up quickly when he is active, and he is even uncomfortably hot when he is exercising heavily. The few times he has been sufficiently injured to draw ‘blood,’ small quantities of liquid magma poured forth, solidifying almost instantly on contact with air. His hair is jet-black, and somewhat shiny, like polished obsidian, and he has onyx-black pupils in the midst of white eyes that resemble pink-veined white marble. His three suits are uniformly dark, either dark blue, or dark grey or black. Unlike his companions, his skin and hair samples have taken extremely well to the growth formula used by Dr Scott to create adaptive clothing for them, and he has several outfits to choose from. Excess use of the formula seems to overtax and kill the samples of others tissues, but his own tissues remain durable and resilient, even after separation and vat-growth.
Perhaps his most notable vice is an almost religious devotion to a good cigar. He keeps his cigar-clipper in his breast pocket, and usually keeps some Remy Martin (or other cognac or brandy) stocked to dip his cigars in (although he doesn’t otherwise drink, except to finish off his ‘dippin brandy’). He has other, less public vices, such as a run of ‘one-night girlfriends’ (i.e. hookers), and lying in confessional (a long time habit from his mafia affiliate days, he has never felt comfortable revealing secrets about anything really illegal to anyone, even a priest).
Gravestone: PL 10; Init +2 (+2 Dex); Defense 17 (+5 base, +2 Dex); Spd 30 ft.; Atk +5 melee (+12S punch), +5 ranged (+5L heavy pistol); SV Dmg +4, Fort +9, Ref +2, Will +0; Str 15, Dex 15, Con 18, Int 14, Wis 11, Cha 10. (25 pp, 23 pp)
Skills: Climb +2/14, Jumping +1/13, Intimidate +6/18, Drive +2/4, Survival +5/6, Search +3/4, Listen +2/3, Move Silently +1/2, Hide +1/2, Gather Information +5/5 - 28 pp
Feats: Accurate Attack, Power Attack, Surprise Strike, Expertise, Instant Stand, Rapid Strike, Improved Trip, Startle, Dodge, Track, Durability, Blindsight - 24 pp
Powers: Alternate Form +10 (Solid: Stone, Super-Strength and Protection at power rank, Flaw: Permanent, 4 pp / level)
Immovability +5
Sensory Protection +5
Amazing Save: Fortitude +5 - 55 pp
Immunities: Aging, Critical Hits, Disease, Exhaustion, Poison, Pressure, Starvation, Suffocation, Heat, Cold (free with Alt form)
Equipment:
155 pp
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New Feat
Extraordinary Training – Prerequisite (Super-Intelligence or Immunity (aging)) A Hero with this Feat can learn skills at the cost of 2 ranks / 1 pp.
Regular: A Hero must spent 1 pp / skill rank.
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New Power
Knockback
Cost: 2
Action: Half
Range: Normal
Duration: Instant
Saving Throw: Reflex
You can project a repelling force that sends a target flying away from you through the air. For every rank, the power counts as an Energy Blast, only once the Damage effect is calculated, the target flies back 5 feet per success instead of taking damage, and is allowed a second Reflex save with a Difficulty equal to the initial attack difficulty to avoid falling over.
If a target Knocked Back strikes a solid object or surface, both the surface and the target suffer a damaging effect with a Power Rank of +1 per 5 feet thrown. (So if someone is struck by a Knockback attack and fails to resist by 5, she is thrown 25 feet back. If she strikes a wall 15 feet back, both she and the wall suffer a Rank 5 attack.) If the damaging effect causes the surface struck to break, the damage to the Knocked Back target is only Stun damage. If the attack does not break the surface, the damage to the target is Lethal. Note that some surfaces, like water, may be always considered to be ‘soft’ landings, and only inflict Stun damage, while others, such as a wall covered with spikes, may always cause Lethal damage to those thrown through them.
Ranks of Immovability count as Protection versus this effect. Each Rank of Immovability, Protection or Force Field reduces the power of the Knockback effect by 1, and if the Rank is reduced to zero or less, the effect is ignored. Amazing Save: Damage does not reduce the effect.
Extras
Doubled Range – This extra doubles the knockback range, so that one level of this Extra causes the effect to be 10 feet / success, and 2 levels of it allows 20 feet / success. Damage from Knockback can never exceed the Power Rank, regardless of the distance thrown.
Variable Direction – This extra allows the user to choose the direction of the Knockback, even causing the target to be knocked forward, towards the user of the power, but more commonly hurling it upwards, downwards or sideways.
Sustained Effect – So long as the user spends a Free Action maintaining the power each turn, it continues to have the effect of the initial roll on the target, causing it to tumble backwards over successive rounds, although the target is allowed a new Reflex save each round to break free, as well as a Reflex save to retain its footing, unless it has already fallen in a previous round.
Deflection – Grants the Deflection power at the power rank.
Mental – Allows the user to generate a telekinetic repulsive force, requiring a Will save in lieu of a Reflex save.
Knockback – An Extra added to an Energy Control attack, or to Super-Strength, Spinning, Strike, Super-Speed, an Energy Field or Weapon, etc allowing the attack to do Knockback as well as normal damage.