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Masked
Wrestler
"I have to do it for the kids..."
Your childhood was tough. You grew up in an orphanage, with just the other kids and an old black-and-white Zenith Tv set for company.
When you were old enough, you left, and promised never to suffer from deprivation ever again.
But for a young guy without instruction nor a family to back him up there's not much to do in this world; the only thing you had was your toughness. And you placed your bet on that.
So you went to a gym. You worked there scrubbing floors and they let you use some of the stuff for training off-hours. The pay was so lousy that you did not have to watch your weight too much. You worked out, just staying alive.
Then you started practicing your wrestling abilities: small local matches, town tournaments, non-profit demonstrations of the Art.
You had just one problem: you look too much of a nice guy to have any credibility in this sport.
So you masked yourself.
This turned out to be good, not only because alternating masks you could be on much more fights making as a consequence much more money, but also because it gave you an edge when the guys in black designer clothes came to you to fix a game and you refused. Oh, they tried to convince you, sure... intimidate, they call it. You had them running in less than 2 minutes.
So you now have it all: the success, the respect of thousands of fans that know only by your trade name, and a few sworn enemies on the wrong side of the law. And money, more than you could spend in two lifetimes. So you give it to charities, and keep fighting the good fight.
Making them cheer or run, depending on the circumstance.
Juncture: Modern
Attributes: Bod 10 (Thoughness 12), Chi 0 , Mnd 5 (Willpower 7), Ref 5
Skills:
Add 6 Skill Bonuses.
Weapons: Improvised weapons only
Special Schticks:
Know Thy Enemy
By spending time studying his enemy's
actions and stunts, the masked wrestler can
To achieve one of the above, the wrestler has to observe the fight from the outside, staying out of the melee for at least the first half of the combat, and afterwards making a successfull Intelligence roll.
Enough is Enough
A variant on the "Conditional Escalation"
creature schtick, this allows the Masked Wrestler to triumph over his adversary
after a whole fight sequence spent just being roughly kicked around.
As
soon as he has suffered 30 hit points, the Masked Wrestler gets a +2 bonus
on his Strenght and Agility, and all related skills up the end of the fight
(when he, exausted but victorious, will crash unkonscious on the floor...
hopefully). The first attack after the schtick has kicked in should be treated
as a surprise attack.
Wealth Level: Rich (but you give a lot to charities)
Exterminator
"Pests are pests... size does not matter."
Exterminator, ratcatcher, environmental infestations controller...
Maybe you do not know what evil lurks in men's hearts, but you sure as
hell know what evil lurks in men's basements.
And kitchen's dark corners.
And wherever the nasty brutes rear their ugly little heads, there you are to wage your solitary war... For a very reasonable fee.
You've been there and you've seen that there is not much difference betwen the rats that scurry in rich men's mansions and in destitute old blocks in the inner city, and this has led you to develop your very own personal philosophy: pests are pests.
Some say you're cynical, but you call yourself a realist.
Being a quiet and peaceful kind of guy, you generally try and stay well clear of trouble. But just like roaches, nasty guys might get in the way even if nobody in his right mind would go and actually look for them. When this happens, you feel your duty is to step in and do your job. And it makes you feel better to know that you can do something to keep the critters in their place.
Traps, poisoned baits, deadly vapours, small calibre guns... it's a battle of wits, you against evolution. It's a classical, action-movie-like, them or us situation.
Juncture: any
Attributes: Bod 5, Chi 0 (Fortune = 8), Mnd 5 (Perception 6), Ref 5
Skills:
Add 2 Attribute Points and 6 Skill Bonuses.
Weapons: Nothing serious... but a small calibre gun might be allowed (keeper's discrection).
Schticks: two Fu schticks or one Gun Schtick
Unique Schticks
Small Targets
A specialized flavour of Eagle Eye, lets
you ignore
2 points of difficulty for each schitick spent when firing at targets smaller
than a pint in volume with any kind of gun or thrown weapon.
Kill-It
The exterminator is an expert when it comes to devise new ways for killing pests. This schtick works together with the Fix-It skill, and enables the exterminator to improvise traps, poisons and extermination-oriented gadgets.
Wealth Level: Working Stiff
Film Critic
"Nice bit of action, if somewhat overdone, but your subtext is lousy" (Bang!)
You've been there, and you've seen it all.
Lousy third-rate venues with floors sticking from too many chewingums
screening long forgotten german surrealist horrors to the accompainment of
woodworms eating their way through the mis-matched chairs.
Alienating
multiplexes with screens as big as old TV sets and filled with kids cheering
that Austrian ham-master as he blew mooks away with his lighter.
First
class picture theatres filled with a limp-wristed presentialists and first-row
glitterati that were too busy trying to catch the eye of the camera to actually
mind the action on screen.
And the drive-ins, alone.
The arthouse
circuit.
Cannes.
You saw it all, and you wrote your piece about it.
Sometimes you think the only things that matter in your life ever happened on screen, often subtitled in some foreign language.
Now the dream is gone, all the greats are dead and some of them haven't realized yet, and they've colorized Bogart "to increase its appeal to younger audiences", and as the action suddenly spills into real-life like in too-many short-of-ideas features, you find it surprisingly easy to do the right thing, going through the motions and actually kicking ass.
Someone once compalined you only saw things either black or white.
Here,
now, it's just an infinity of shades of gray, and it feels good.
And if it was all right for Bogart...
Juncture: modern
Attributes: Bod 5, Chi 0, Mnd 5 (Perception 6), Ref 5
Skills:
Add 2 Attribute Points and 6 Skill Bonuses.
Weapons: will have to pick up something along the way and improvise
Schticks: two Fu schticks or one Gun Schtick
Unique Schticks
Clichés of the World
The film critic has seen it all, more than once; the first time done by Vincent Price, the last by Michael Ironside, but that's it... There's a lot of cliches, going around, and somehow people involved in the Secret War tend to face them more than usual. By using this schtick, the film critic can recognize a cliché, and take advantage of it.
Some sample clichés:
Intellectualoid Wordplay
If you can imagine a guy actually making a living out of watching films and then telling people his opinion, then you can imagine what an avalanche of words he can throw against an opponent. Using this schtick the critic can taunt, dazzle, impress, bore to death, put to sleep or scare off an opponent.
I Saw It in a Movie
By using this schtick and expending 1 point of Luck, the film critic can try and use a skill he does not have, as at base level, by working on data gleaned from watching movies and trying to look convincing.
Wealth Level: Working Stiff
Getaway
Driver
"... it's al a matter of reflexes."
You drive the car.
Your job begins when the guys get out, and ends when all tails have been shaken.
You do not particularly like it, but you take a certain pride in your job. You consider yourself a professional, and you prepare yourself as such - you know the vehicles, you know the lay of the land, you have the right contacts. You think speed freaks are just that - freaks.
Often, your employers think that you are just an accessory, one that spends his time on the job sitting and smoking while the rest of the gang is facing the odds. They think pushing a souped-up VolksWagen Beetle with nitro-spiked fuel and shortened-run pistons to one hundred and twenty and beyond up a turnpike while dodging shots is a poor excuse for a job. That's probably why you have often to do some extra work to get your share.
So why stick with the bad guys when the opportunity for a nice bit of action comes to you on a silver plate?
You've outrun most of what's on the streets today - but these Dragon chaps look like they have a hell of a tail to shake, and no time for pit stops.
It could be your kind of thing.
Juncture: modern
Attributes: Bod 5, Chi 0, Mnd 5 (Perception 6), Ref 5
Skills:
Add 2 Attribute Points and 6 Skill Bonuses.
Weapons: a shortened shotgun is probably the best choice. Keep it in a holster under taped to the dashboard's underside. A pair of boxes of caltrops are also strongly suggested.
Schticks: 1 gun schtick (suggested Hair-Trigger Neck Hairs), Automobilus Indestructus, two driving schticks.
Unique Schticks
We Brake for No One
By spending one Luck point and making a valid Urban Geography check, the Driver can determine the straightest, safest way from A to B through parks, buildings, underground and railway tunnels and bridges, no-drive areas and such. The keeper is invited to determine an appropriate number of obstacles to be ignored and destroyed.
