Writer Profile:
Username: Eustacio
Preferred Name: Eus
Favorite Comic / Comic-Based Film: Pretty much most of Marvel
What kind of superhero stories do you normally enjoy?: I like a variety.
What attracted you to this game?: Liked the system idea
ITSDA Superhuman Dossier
Full Name: Linda Cook
Aliases & Nicknames: The Artificer
Age: 23
Years Awakened: 13
Height: 5'11
Weight: 185 lbs
Build: Athletic
Hair: Straight, deep red that drops down to her mid-back
Eyes: Blue
GVD (Generalized Visual Description): Linda is tall and athletically built, with thick being the best way to describe her. She's noticeably strong and generally wears sleeveless v-neck shirts with khakis while working. She has straight, deep red hair that drops down to the middle of her back and blue eyes. A pair of bracers adorn her arms as the only noticeable accessory.
Political Alignment: ITSDA
Superhuman Abilities: Linda has the ability to create artifacts. These artifacts can grant various powers to her, based on what she needs. She can have up to five artifacts created at one time. The drawback is that to make a good artifact, she needs both the right materials and time. Creating artifacts on the fly is possible, but the quality is not as good. Unless she dictates in the creation of the artifacts otherwise, the artifacts can only be used by her.
As outlined, her power is limited by time and quality of materials and can be thought of in two stages: Crafting and Enchanting. Enchanting is not magical, despite the name, but is the best way to differentiate the two.
Crafting:
Linda does not necessarily need to make the object herself. However, the object she chooses to use must be appropriate to the task at hand. A hammer does not make an appropriate tool to scry on somebody. A television, however, would be. A nice, new television is going to work a whole lot better than an old black and white television from the 1950's. If the object doesn't need to be physically crafted, she can skip right to the enchanting.
She does prefer to build the object herself, however, as anything she crafts herself has the side effect of being more durable, both as a side effect of her power and the quality of the materials. Unless she specifically crafts an existing object to be more durable than it normally is, it remains just as easy to destroy as it normally would be.
A poor quality craft or a poor quality object she grabbed in the middle of battle, no matter how much time she spends enchanting it, will never be stronger than a Threat Level 3 power.
Enchanting:
Following the ITSDA guidelines is the best way to determine the time frame for how long she needs.
Threat Level 1 or 2 (low level powers, weak versions of strong powers): A few seconds.
Threat Level 3 (includes weaker versions of stronger powers): A minute or two.
Threat Level 4 (includes weaker versions of stronger powers): 30-60 minutes.
Threat Level 5 (includes weaker versions of stronger powers): A minimum of four hours.
Her power also has the side effect of allowing her to repair almost any mundane object, provided at least 80% of its components are in the area. After major incidents, she sometimes gets dispatched to fix up the mess others have made. She has an instinctive knowledge of engineering, materials, structure, etc... that lets her know all sorts of details of an object or structure.
Common Uses:
Linda is a character who is all about preparation, so her combat "decision tree" has three distinct branches: Impromptu, Operation, and Red Alert. The open slot gear she chooses or makes on the fly is entirely dependent on the imagination of the writer (and GMs) and the situation at hand. She usually does not go out herself to deal with low level threats (ITSDA 1-2) unless there are extenuating circumstances.
Impromptu
Impromptu situations are the situations similar to the classic scene of the hero walking down the street and suddenly a villain appears. If there is almost no time to prepare and Linda needs to react that instant, this is the decision tree to use. She is at her weakest in these situations, though by no means helpless.
Gear and Power Details
Gear: Her standard loadout is likely on her (strength and durability bracers, flight ring, ITSDA Communications Gear).
Crafting: Linda is limited to existing things in her environment. She does not have time to craft anything here.
Enchanting: Level 1 and 2 powers are possible on open gear. Level 3 is possible if she can steal away from the action for a minute, but that is not always possible. Levels 4 and 5 are out of the question.
Response Details
Assessment: She would typically assess the situation and report what she sees. Number of powered individuals, civilians in danger, property damage, powers in use, unusual circumstances, etc...
Intervention: Her primary objective is to minimize damage to civilians first and apprehend the criminal second. This might mean stabilizing a building that the criminal just set on the path of collapse (as in a timed bomb, a disintegrating foundation, etc..., not a building that is actively crumbling). If the criminal is mostly causing a panic with his or her actions, she'll do something like radio ITSDA to organize squads to calm the crowd while she goes after the criminal (the source). Single individual civilians are prioritized in hostage situations or situations where there are only a few civilians present. She hates it, but if somebody is busy doing mass destruction, she knows she can't save all civilians in an impromptu situation.
Operation
Operation is the tree she uses if she is planning a raid on a known Gifted criminal or receives intelligence of something that will go down that she wants to intervene on. Basically, if she has some time to prepare, this is the decision path she will go down. She may find out about it because she was using her power to spy on a target, was alerted by intelligence, or any other means where she somehow knows, in advance, that something is going to happen. This is the situation in which Linda is going to be at her strongest, as the more she can prepare, the more she can bring to bear all her resources.
Gear and Power Details
Gear: Her flight ring and durability bracer almost always get chosen. The strength bracer is usually chosen as well if she doesn't absolutely need the other two slots.
Crafting and Enchanting: Give her a day or two to plan and she can craft whatever she thinks is appropriate for the mission. Even a few hours will let her do a fair bit. If she is going up against a relatively common or known power (teleportation, physical enhancements, magic, etc...), she likely already has some type of high quality craft made and only needs to (re)enchant it with an appropriate power or counter.
ITSDA: She can deploy soldiers and other squads if needed for things like covering her back, securing a perimeter, or use them in some form of complex plan if she's going in after a target.
Response Details
In an operation, Linda likely has knowledge of the situation beforehand, so she can tailor her response appropriately. She does tend to leave some "wiggle room" for unforeseen complications and often leaves at least one item slot open for on-the-fly needs. She tries to make sure no civilians are present and that minimum public property damage is done. Otherwise the response is highly dependent on the exact plan or building she is infiltrating.
Red Alert
This is the situation where she is at ITSDA base and a red alert comes in for her to respond to. Some Gifted is trashing NYC (again), there has been a murder and the Gifted murderer has been spotted, etc... In these situations Linda may have some preparation time to come up with a plan and some gear, but not as much as in an Operation.
Gear and Power Details
Gear: Her flight ring and durability bracer almost always get chosen. The strength bracer is usually chosen as well if she doesn't absolutely need the other two slots.
Crafting and Enchanting: Level 3 gear is relatively easy to use in this situation. Level 4 is possible in the right situation, but unlikely. Level 5 is almost assuredly out of the question.
ITSDA: She can deploy soldiers and other squads if needed for things like covering her back, securing a perimeter, etc... However, the most common use in a Red Alert scenario, if there are many civilians present, is deployment in crowd control. Making use of a ITSDA Gifted Teleporter is often used to get her and the soldiers into the right location. The Gifted Teleporter doesn't stick around, however, and is only used as a plot device to get people into the action.
Reponse Details
Assessment: She has more time to analyze the situation. Not a lot more time, but she can come up with something of a plan more easily than in an impromptu situation.
Arrival: Via Gifted Teleporter or her own flight powers, depending on location. ITSDA personnel may be deployed as well, based on the situation.
Intervention: Her primary objective is to minimize damage to civilians first and apprehend the criminal second. This might mean stabilizing a building that the criminal just set on the path of collapse (as in a timed bomb, a disintegrating foundation, etc..., not a building that is actively crumbling). Single individual civilians are prioritized in hostage situations or situations where there are only a few civilians present. She hates it, but if somebody is busy doing mass destruction, she knows the best way to save people is to stop the bad guy first.
Specialized Equipment:
Her entire power is all about specialized gear. She would have ITSDA access to restricted gear.
Bracers: A pair of bracers. One grants her superhuman strength (the ability to lift and carry 100 tons) and the other grants her and the objects on her person superhuman durability (most blades won't scratch her, she can withstand high level explosions, etc...).
Ring: Her ring allow her to fly safely at hypersonic speeds.
Two Open Slots: Sometimes she'll come in prepared with something else. Sometimes not. It depends on what she expects.
ITSDA Communications Gear: So she can talk to people at command at will.
Workshop: Linda probably has one of the most well-stocked workshops in the world at the ITSDA headquarters due to the nature of her powers.
Specialized Training and Skills:
Athletics: Linda is highly athletic and spends at least a couple hours a day working out.
Making Stuff: She is a master craftswoman, even without her powers. She can build just about anything, given the right tools.
Combat: She has been training in martial arts ever since she was a young child, and has continued that training since joining the ITSDA. She knows how to use most military-style weapons thanks to her training with the ITSDA, but prefers to go it unarmed.
Engineering: She can make almost anything, and this has imbued her with an instinctive understanding of an object's structure, how it is built, what it is made up of, etc...
Computers: Linda majored in Information Science and is capable of programming or hacking her way in or out of situations.
Stealth/Espionage: As part of her training, she was taught the ways of the spy.
Genetics: The other major Linda has, she knows a lot about genetics. She was interested in this due to her powers and how they manifested in her.
Intelligence: As expected of someone who has command authority in the ITSDA, Linda has a very high level of intelligence, with an IQ measured at 215. She can hold complex battle operations, lists of Gifted with their powers, squad movements and tendencies, and even her friends' phone numbers in her head and make use of that information.
Hypothesized Goal: She's an artificer. She wants to figure out if there is a way to create an object like the original artifact that created the Gifted, except that she can dictate how and if a power is granted...or taken away. She believes that her gift is the one that will decide if humanity evolves quickly or stays on the path that it has been on for hundreds of years.
Personality Profile: Linda is a classic Type A personality. She is direct to the point and believes she is right most of the time. She is willing to listen to well-reasoned arguments against her opinion, and if someone else brings up a valid point, she has no problem accepting that and moving forward with accurate information.
She is supremely confident for one so young, and refuses to let her age get in the way of getting the job done, instead choosing to utilize her elders' experiences to inform her decisions. She believes in doing the right thing, even when it is the hard thing. That means if someone bad needs to die, she has no problem pulling the trigger. If it means letting the bad guy flee to save hundreds of civilians, then that is what she will do.
Background:
Linda has been aware of the Gifted for a very long time. She was one of the first people to experience superhuman powers. She kept her gift quiet, however, using it to further enhance her science projects at school and turning that into a scholarship at Yale. As a child, she realized she could become a superhero or a supervillain like the shoes on television and in the comics, and so she got her parents to enroll her in various sports and martial arts classes. Here parents were all too happy to do so with the threat of super-powered people in the world today, not knowing their daughter was one of them. With her ambition, her parents pushed her hard, and she became the kid whose parents made sure she was excelling in schoolwork, athletics, and their social life.
When she went to Yale, she heard about ITSDA as a freshman and contacted them to sign up, with the caveat that she would work for them and get her degree. When they asked her how, she informed them that she'd have time if they'd let her work the night shift. She would create an artifact after classes that would effectively refresh her as if she'd gotten eight hours of sleep, fly to the ITSDA headquarters, and begin her work and training as an ITSDA agent.
She graduated from Yale with degrees in Information Science and Genetics. She's risen through the ranks and proven herself in both combat and politics at the iTSDA. She has enough rank at this point to direct other agents or squadrons to areas of interest based on their powers or, if she feels the need is great enough, to go in herself with her own powers. She has commanded large scale operations remotely, led small teams herself, and operated solo in her time at the ITSDA, and commands authority as a member of the upper brass.
Awareness: Y
Threat Level: (1-5) 5