Gabriel Cardova

AlphaOmega

Character Name: Gabriel Cordova

Caste: Twilight

Concept: Vigilante Teacher

The first thing that most people notice about Gabe is that he always seems tired. At the ripe age of 42, he isn't exactly in the prime of his youth anymore and a decade and a half of teaching high school kids probably contributed a few extra wrinkles, white hairs and stress lines. He seems to skip shaving every other day and his hair is not always perfectly in place. Nevertheless, his smile always shines through his almost dirty appearance and somehow seems to warm everyone's hearts. When not lost in thought, he tries to pay as much attention to the people around him as possible, letting them know how much he appreciates them. Though he is overly optimistic and cheerful, he never comes off as creepy. He always seems honest and sincere, like a kindly uncle.

His dusky skin and brown eyes imply his Latin heritage, though he speaks without an accent. His hair is kept short, though it has a tendency to be as stubborn as Gabe himself and has been known to poke further out of place as the day progresses. He keeps his goatee small, but it is rare to see him without at least a little bit of stubble around the rest of his face.

He is almost never seen in anything other than a dress shirt and slacks with a tie that seems to come progressively more undone with the same daily frequency as his hair.

Motivation

Seek and destroy the monsters that prey on the innocent

Anima

As a Twilight Caste Gabriel may use his anima to buffer himself against physical trauma, subtracting his Essence score from the health levels of damage dealt to him. When his anima blazes in its full glory, his iconic banner appears as a large feathered serpent that shimmers with the colors of twilight.

Attributes

PHYSICAL: Strength 3, Dexterity 3, Stamina 3

SOCIAL: Charisma 3, Manipulation 2, Appearance 2

MENTAL: Perception 4, Intelligence 4, Wits 3

Abilities

Caste Abilities

Academics 5, Computers 2, Craft - Fire 4, Craft - Technology 1, Investigation 2

Favored Abilities

Athletics 1, Dodge 1, Integrity 1, Martial Arts 4, Presence 2

Unfavored Abilities

Awareness 1, Bureaucracy 1, Drive 1, Larceny 1, Linguistics 1, Performance 3, Resistance 3, Stealth 1, Socialize 1

Backgrounds

Contacts 3

Gabe's major contacts are various professionals who share his desire to improve the lives of the local youth, even if it means bending the laws a bit.

• Nancy Borland is a history teacher at Gabe's high school and is inspired by his willingness to put his students' lives before his own. She hopes to one day be as strong of a role model as Gabe and occasionally helps him research information in his investigations.
• Isaac Maynard is a social worker who has aided Gabe in resolving domestic problems in his students' home lives. Isaac wishes more people would show as much concern for teenagers as Gabe does and never gives a second thought to providing him with a bit of info here and there regarding certain indviduals' public files and sometimes even personal information or criminal records when he can manage it.
• Caesar Escobar is an assistant district attorney who is an old friend of Gabe. Though he is unable to force the D.A. to take actions based on Gabe's word, the two have long traded tips regarding various cases and investigations.

Followers 1

Gabe's followers are a handful of students who he managed to help out of bad situations and give them fresh starts in life. They are his biggest supporters and often try to involve themselves in his more "pro-active" endeavors, whether he asks for their help or not (usually not -- he is rather uneasy with the idea of endangering them). Though none of them individually have a great deal of expertise or influence in anything, they are proud to help in any way they might be able.

• Anna Waits was devastated by her mother's suicide and had been depressed for years until regular talks with Mr. Cordova gave her the strength to find happiness again -- she is now a hopeful for the cheerleading squad.
• Jerome Collins was sure he was headed nowhere in life and was ready to drop out of school until a number of timely interventions by Mr. C proved to him that his aptitudes were far greater than he'd ever realized -- he now has a deep interest in a wide range of subjects and is quickly climbing up the student achievements roster.
• David Wallace had a history of aggression and faced expulsion until he tried to tussle with a certain teacher -- he has a better grasp on his emotions now and has actually become quite adept at helping others through their own emotional problems
• Mimi Nguyen lived with an abusive father until her science teacher helped give her the courage to get him out of her life and behind bars -- she's determined to never let someone bully her again and has started taking self-defense courses when not helping her mother repair their fractured home life.
• Mark Alonso's life was saved a bit more literally than most when Mr. Cordova managed to fight off a strange beast that had assaulted him near the school grounds at night -- though he never figured out precisely what the monster was, Mark has begun take occult research pretty seriously as of late.

Influence 1

Though he holds no real power in the city, Gabe has a great deal of sway with the local PTA and is well-known by a number of education and family service groups. As a local hero of child welfare, people are bound to listen if he alerts them of a danger to the city's youth.

Resources 2

Teaching isn't a very lucrative career, but Gabe is single and lives a pretty simple lifestyle. He has a small condominium, an economy car and a fair bit of savings. He spends most of his time being a paragon for youth that he doesn't entertain much, so his house is extremely drab and boring. For the same reasons, he hasn't had a date in over ten years.

Charms

Academics

First Academics Excellency Adds dice to Academics rolls. Pg. 183

Third Academics Excellency May re-roll an Academics check and decide which result to keep. Pg. 185

Harmonious Academic Methodology May instruct a group of people for at least five hours over the course of a week, at the end of which all individuals in the group will raise whichever relevant trait was tutored by a single dot. Gabe may increase his trait with the group as well. Pg. 215

Craft

First Craft Excellency Adds dice to Craft rolls. Pg. 183

Craftsman Needs No Tools Removes the need for tools. Also dramatically improves the amount of work accomplished in an hour. Pg. 213

Investigation

First Investigation Excellency Adds dice to Investigation rolls. Pg. 183

Judge's Ear Technique Can automatically tell if someone has told a lie or even a half-truth. Pg. 213

Martial Arts

Fists of Iron Technique Can inflict lethal damage and parry lethal attacks barehanded. Barehanded attacks are also more powerful. Pg. 242

Performance

Respect Commanding Attitude All who can hear Gabe speak are compelled to listen to him speak. Pg. 202

Resistance

Ox-Body Technique Adds one extra -1 and two extra -2 health levels. Pg. 208

Intimacies

• Students
• School
• Justice

Essence

Essence: 3

Peripheral: 14

Personal: 35

Committed: 0

Willpower

5

Virtues

Compassion: 3

Conviction: 2

Temperance: 2

Valor: 2

Limit Break

Red Rage of Compassion

When Gabe can no longer stand to see innocents suffer, he flies into a rage and violently assaults what he perceives to be the cause of their pain. This fury is unreasonable and is likely to greatly injure even allies if they attempt to stop him from meting out justice.

Equipment

Gabe carries very little with him at any given point in time. Apart from his cell phone, lesson plans and graded test papers, he rarely carries anything at all. He does not own any sort of weapons, though he is becoming rather adept at turning random objects into improvised weapons when he needs them.

History

Gabriel is the second generation of his family born in the United States. His grandparents emigrated from El Salvador in the hopes that their children might have an opportunity for a better life. Gabe's father worked in construction while his mother took countless domestic jobs on top of being a housewife. His family was relatively small and though they were very strict, there was no lack of love in his household. Sadly, Gabe's parents passed away by the time he entered college and he has been on his own ever since.

With no family to go home to, Gabe threw himself into his studies. He attended university on a scholarship and almost effortlessly received top marks each successive year. He loved learning, but he mostly kept himself busy so that he would not have time to think about how lonely he was. He made few real friends -- Caesar being the only one he still speaks to -- and dated infrequently, even then only doing so after being pressured into it. Needless to say, he formed no lasting relationships.

Before he knew it, Gabe had earned a PhD in Applied Science and had MIT representatives practically banging on his door. He recognized, however, that he had simply been pressing forward without any real idea of what he wanted to do with his life. Without his family, there had been no heart in what he'd done for years. Seeking to find his own passion, Gabe retreated from the academic limelight.

Gabe spent a significant amount of time soul-searching in Central America, going back to his roots in an attempt to discover where he had come from. What he found there was poverty and violence. Though he had managed to locate the family that his grandparents had left behind decades ago, he was as different from them as night and day. He knew nothing of the hardships they endured daily and they could not understand why he would ever want to come back to such a place. Without truly comprehending why, Gabe stayed in El Salvador for two years -- living only on what meager wages he earned and trying his best to survive in a war-torn country.

The Peace Accords in 1992 put an end to the twelve-year war, but Gabe had already returned to the United States by the time they had been committed to paper. Armed with a better understanding of the human condition and a newfound appreciation for his country, Gabriel Cordova decided to make sure that the world was better equipped to resolve the many woes of society. He would do this by helping those who were destined to bring change -- the next generations.

Though there were a great deal of people disappointed by his decision to become a lowly high school teacher, Gabe's resolve was strong and he ferociously applied himself to his new career. Though he gained some popularity as the "happy doctor," Gabe was still unimpressed by how little he'd managed to influence his students' lives. He become involved in all sorts of curricular and extra-curricular activities, expanding his awareness of student culture -- yet still only a few ever managed to do something worthwhile with their lives.

As time passed and each year saw the bare-minimum graduation of a new host of apathetic students, Gabe began to seriously wonder if there was perhaps more that he should be looking at. Much like his soul-searching years before, maybe he had to look at the situation from a different angle. This time, he decided to investigate the environmental influences on his students' lives.

As before, what Gabe found was shocking and often profoundly disturbing. Poverty and violence once again reared their ugly heads, joined now by up-close and personal greetings by crime, drugs, and sex abuse. All these things and worse threatened the growth of his students on a level he hadn't ever considered likely. The world was certainly much darker than he'd expected, and it seemed Las Vegas was a unique monster in and of itself.

But once again, Gabe refused to back down. He increased his range of efforts; working with law enforcement, aiding social workers, keeping regular contact with parents and going out of his way to find financial aid for those students whose families were in need. Slowly, the improvements came but they were still rather minuscule in the grand scheme of things. So, he worked even harder -- teaching more classes to increase the number of students he interacted with in a given week, holding private counseling sessions with students he noticed were troubled, investigating rumors of problems in the home and tapping his various connections for information and aid when he could not fix something himself.

In the fifteen years that Gabe has been a teacher, he has become a local celebrity among parents for his unparalleled dedication to his students' well being. Good people know that their children are in good hands with Mr. Cordova -- bad people find out this same thing in a different way. Over the last five years, Gabe has also proven to be a huge thorn in the side of many corrupt individuals within the education system. He has relentlessly hounded administration officials in his efforts to stamp out the underhanded dealings which directly affect schools and their students. Were it not for his popularity with local parents and his surprising influence with some city officials, it is likely he would have been laid off years ago.

Personality

Honesty can be brutal, but Gabe's warm smile and genuine love for his fellow human being truly softens the blow.

Gabe is always positive, either because he knows things are good or because he is determined to make them better. He encourages others to do the same, uplifting them and showing them that they themselves have the awesome power to change the world. He truly believes that there is a hero in everyone and when he speaks to you, he strives to draw that hero out. Gabe has always said that he actually is kind of a boring guy -- it's the people around him that make him seem interesting. Those that know him claim that his presence is empowering and to learn from him is to improve your understanding of the world and yourself.

When confronted with the evil that threatens his innocent charges, Gabriel becomes brutal and somewhat terrifying by comparison to his usual self. He will stop at nothing to eliminate corruption and his expression is unmistakable when he nears his breaking point.

Merits and Flaws

None

Goals and Motivations

His motivation is what it has been for the last fifteen years -- improve society by raising today's youths to be strong and capable. To this overarching dream, he has amended many related goals such as defending the weak from corruption and galvanizing the city to stand up against the dark side of humanity.

Since his Exaltation, Gabe has waged a shadow war against the creatures of the night -- bringing the might of the forgotten sun god directly to their hidden dens and cleansing them from the world. Though he is little concerned about other Exalted, his natural curiosity has moved him to seek out others that might help him understand his newfound place in the world.