Malakai Ruskin

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Malakai Ruskin ::

Ancestry :: Duster

Ancestry Features: Outsider, Environmental Resistance (Dust), Attribute Increase (Agility), Adaptable

Attributes

Agility || Smarts || Spirit || Strength || Vigor || Wealth

Derived Stats

Pace || Parry || Size || Toughness (1)

Core Skills

Athletics || Common Knowledge || Notice || Persuasion || Stealth || Piloting/Boating

Other Skills

Fighting || Focus || Healing || Thievery

Hindrances

Outsider - Minor - Dusters appear human on the surface - mostly - but settled folk can sense something is off with them. Persuasion rolls are made at -2 vs non-Dusters.

Cautious - Minor - His tendency to run up the side of buildings notwithstanding, Malakai prefers to plan than make rash decisions.

Loyal (Black Sheep and crew) - Minor - While he's not happy using violence, Malakai will absolutely put his life on the line for the Black Sheep and its crew.

Pacifist - Minor - Your hero absolutely despises violence. Minor pacifism means he only fights when given no other choice and never allows the killing of prisoners or other defenseless victims.

Quirk - Minor - Malakai doesn't like to be touched.

(2 points spent on Attribute Increase (Agility) and 2 points on the Free Runner Edge.

Edges and Powers

Free Runner - Full Pace on Difficult Ground when on foot, +2 to Athletics rolls when climbing and in foot chases.

Arcane Background (Gifted) (15 pp)

Shape Change (modified) Novice | Power Points: Special | Range: Self | Duration: 30 mins out of combat, 5 rounds if used in combat for anything other than defensive/evasive actions.

Trappings: dust swirls up from the ground, encasing Malakai. When it subsides, he's something else.

New Powers

Darksight - Novice | Power Points: 1 | Range: Smarts | Duration: One hour

Trappings:

Sound/Silence - Novice | Power Points: 1 | Range: Smarts ×5 (sound); Smarts (silence) | Duration: Instant (sound); 5 (silence)

Trappings:

Special Abilities

Environmental Resistance (Dust) - Dusters get +4 to resist the negative effects of Dust that plagues the badlands.

Languages Known - Trade Tongue, Ting, Pidgin

Advances

Edge: New Powers (Darksight and Sound/Silence)

Equipment

Armor

Neat but worn and patched clothes
Good boots
Leather duster +1

Weaponry

Wooden baton (Using light club stats) | Damage Str + d4 | Min Str D4 | Weight 2

Gear

Carried

Canteen of water
Goggles

Stowed

Backpack
Spare blanket
Spare clothes and boots
Utility knife | Damage Str + d4 | Min Str D4 | Weight 1
(Malakai carries this in the wilds, not in settlements)

Bio

When Malakai was a child a violent dust storm wiped out the settlement he lived in, which had been left vulnerable by drought. By the time help came he'd been alone for several weeks, surviving on what he could scavenge from the ruins - or catch in newly-discovered animal forms.

There was some disagreement on what to do with him. He had no known family and was now obviously a Duster, but had started out as Human as everyone else. How could they give a defenceless child to the ravages of the Wilds? So he was passed into the dubious care of Copper Flats chapter of The Society for the Rehabilitation of the Dust-Afflicted, a group of do-gooders who were convinced that Dusters could be normal productive members of society if only they'd forsake the weird powers the dust had given them.

While the Society provided Malakai with lodging and an education, any use of powers or "unbecoming behaviour" was punished. He learned how to tell the adults around him what he thought they wanted to hear, and to steal food when this wasn't successful. As a teenager he stowed away on visiting airship the Black Sheep in cat form. Since he had nowhere else to go except back to the Society, the Captain agreed to keep him on as an "apprentice". Although he's been with the crew ever since, as a Duster raised by humans he has a foot in both worlds, and doesn't feel like he belongs in either.

Power Detail

Darksight

Rank: Novice | Power Points: 1 | Range: Smarts | Duration: One hour

Darksight allows a hero to see in the dark. With success, he ignores up to 4 points of illumination penalties. With a raise, he ignores up to six points and can see in pitch darkness.

Modifiers

Additional Recipients (+1 per extra target) - The power may affect more than one target.

Shape Change​

Rank: Novice| Power Points: Special | Range: Self | Duration: 30 mins/5 rounds

Description: This power allows the caster to take the form of other living creatures. He can only turn into the base form of such beings, not elite or alternative versions. With a raise, the caster can increase the creature’s Strength and Vigor by one die type each. The Size of the new form is limited by the caster’s Rank.

A character’s held and worn items are assumed into the new form and reappear when the power ends.

While transformed, the character retains his Edges and Hindrances, and his Smarts, Spirit, and their linked skills. He gains the creature’s Agility, Strength, Vigor, and linked skills, as well as any powers common to that creature but not their Power Points, or any additional wounds or wound reduction abilities. His ability to use devices and communicate is limited to those of his form. The caster may maintain any powers cast before the shape change regardless of form.

Modifiers​

None

Sound/Silence

Rank: Novice | Power Points: 1 | Range: Smarts ×5 (sound); Smarts (silence) | Duration: Instant (sound); 5 (silence)

Description: Sound mimics any known sound or voice, emanating from a point of origin within Range at a volume up to the sound of a loud shout. If used as a Test, the defender opposes the casting roll with Smarts.

Silence does the opposite, muting all sound up to a loud shout within a Large Blast Template. This subtracts 4 from Notice rolls made by those inside the area of effect, as well as anyone trying to hear sounds made from within. A raise completely mutes all sound inside the template—such Notice rolls automatically fail.

Modifiers

Mobile (+1) - The caster can move the area of effect up to his arcane skill die type each round.

Targeted (+0) - Instead of casting silence in an area of effect, the caster may instead target individuals in Range for 1 Power Point each. Unwilling targets resist with Spirit (at −2 if the caster gets a raise).